


Driving in the Dark

by Sarah_hadeschild



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, First Meetings, Human AU, I promise, Insecure Aziraphale (Good Omens), Insecure Crowley (Good Omens), Love Confessions, M/M, Meet-Cute, Past Abuse, Pining, Romance, Slow Burn, Touch-Starved, Yearning, eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:20:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 50,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28680981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah_hadeschild/pseuds/Sarah_hadeschild
Summary: Aziraphale, a small town librarian with a troubled past, has resigned himself to the impossibility of love. That is, until he meets a rough-around-the-edges motorcycle mechanic who reads Mary Oliver.TW for mentions of a past abusive relationship.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Gabriel (Good Omens)
Comments: 312
Kudos: 230





	1. Paradiso

It had been a foolish idea to come here. Aziraphale did not know many things for certain, but he knew that. Anathema had promised a night of wine and laughter and stimulating conversation. Instead, here he was on the back stairs, squinting to read his novel in the dark with only a dim porch-light to aid him while the house practically vibrated with music and alcohol behind him.

He glanced at his watch. _How could he only have been here an hour?_ It felt like an age. He took a sip wine and sighed as yet another pop song fluttered through the open window. _Perhaps he could stay a half hour longer before begging off? Some excuse about an early shift at the library tomorrow?_

No good. He’d already told Anathema about his day off tomorrow and it was far too late in the evening to concoct a feasible lie. His head was swimming with wine enough as it was.

He shivered as a gust of wind swept past him. _Why had Anathema insisted he come to this? How could she have thought that this would be something Aziraphale might enjoy?_

Of course, he already knew why she had done it. He’d been far too reclusive lately, even for him. He had left Gabriel a year ago, but the voice in his head still spoke with an American accent. 

“Come on, Aziraphale,” it pleaded, “go back inside and talk to those people. Tell me; do you think Anathema will still want to be friends with a reticent loner like you? Hiding out here with a book in the cold? She only invited you out of pity, anyways. If you continue on like this, even her pity will go away.”

Aziraphale shook his head, chasing away the voice. _Not tonight,_ he told himself. _Just be normal, just for tonight._

He vowed to stay outside even longer, just to spite the voice inside of him.

The screen door behind him clicked open, and Aziraphale hastened to his feet, attempting to conceal the book beneath his open jacket.

“‘m sorry,” a voice uttered behind him. “Didn’t mean to interrupt, just had to get out of that fucking house.”

Aziraphale’s shoulders sank in relief at the unfamiliar voice. He turned to find a tall figure in black slinking through the door with a wineglass held loosely in his hand. The man’s short hair was longer on top, drifting upwards in fiery auburn tufts. It had a slightly disheveled look to it, as if he had been the one standing outside for the better part of an hour.

“You— you didn’t,” Aziraphale said, resuming his perch on the stoop. “I think we both had the same idea, rather.”

The stranger hummed in agreement. He slinked forward, leaning on the railing that overlooked the small, grassy yard. With his black leather jacket and dark glasses, he looked like a glossy photograph from a magazine cut and pasted into an issue of Town and Country. Slumped on the railing, he seemed too tall and too out of place for Anathema’s country home, and Aziraphale found it endearing. Not to mention his body, so lithe and long that he looked more like a statue than a man. It made Aziraphale want to reach out and touch him, just to see if he was real.

“Hmm,” he hummed, flicking a glance at Aziraphale. “So you’re the bloke from the library, huh?”

“What makes you say that?”

He smirked, pointing to the hardcover. “Because you’ve brought a bloody book to a house party.”

“Oh, of course.”

“And because Anathema might have mentioned she’d invited her charming coworker to her party.”

Aziraphale’s heart fluttered at the word _charming._ “Did she?”

“Yup.” He popped the “p” sound and took a swig from his glass. “So tell me; what makes—” He craned his neck to read the cover. “— Mary Oliver a more pleasing companion than anyone in there?”

“I really couldn’t say,” Aziraphale mumbled, swiping a finger over the protruding bookmark. _This isn’t the time or place to discuss literature, Aziraphale.This poor man came here for some entertainment; don’t drive him away with your opinions._

“Humour me, then.” The man said, finishing his glass and coming to sit next to Aziraphale on the steps. The man’s long leg brushed with his as he lowered himself down and he left it there, as if he’d forgotten that their thighs were touching as he spoke. “I’ve only ever read a couple of her poems.”

_“You’ve_ read Mary Oliver?”

“Well you don’t have to say it like that. I may look a bit…” He gestured aimlessly with his hand. “Rough around the edges, but I am literate, you know.”

“Oh, it’s not that! I just meant that— well, you look like you should be in a film or smoking in a vintage car, not reading Mary Oliver in your spare time.”

The stranger threw back his head in laughter, the sound wind-torn and rough. Aziraphale wanted to hear it again. “Well, I appreciate that you think I’m handsome, but I think your cast of me is inaccurate.”

“I never said you were handsome.”

“Yeah you did.” 

“I _implied_ that I thought you were cool.”

He crinkled his nose. “Practically the same thing.”

“You old vanity.” Aziraphale said, smiling.

“Ok, now stop flirting with me, and tell me your opinion of Mary Oliver.”

“Well…” Aziraphale paused in thought, doing his best to ignore the warm leg still pressed against his own. “…I suppose that I appreciate her honesty the most. And how she weaves nature and emotion together so effortlessly. It’s as though, for her, every emotion has a natural counterpart. The rocks and trees and leaves have all been torn by winds before, and so must we.”

“No feeling is ever final,” the man breathed, nodding to himself. “Rilke.”

“Precisely. You like Rilke?”

“Dunno. I heard that one in a movie once. I’m just impressed that I remembered it.”

Aziraphale smiled, stealing a glance at the man beside him. Only, he found that he was not alone in his curiosity. The other man was eyeing him keenly, his dark pupils barely visible behind the shadowed glass. He couldn’t help but think that the man was beautiful, in his own way. His pale skin contrasted starkly against his many layers of black. Under the moonlight, he practically shone against the darkness. Aziraphale only wished that he could see his eyes.

“It’s nighttime.” He blurted.

“Excellent observation.”

“No— I mean, you are wearing sunglasses at night.”

The man shrugged. “‘ suppose I am.”

“Is that intentional? Are you part of an international spy ring, or was it your aim to come to this party dressed as a pimp?”

Laugh lines crept onto the man’s face as he failed to suppress a smile. “Are those my only two options, then?”

Aziraphale nodded. “I should think so.”

“Then I’m a spy. Definitely.”

“Is that why you haven’t yet told me your name?”

“Yes, alright. You’ve seen right through me, so I suppose I can tell you. ’s Crowley,” the man said, watching him keenly. “Anthony J. Crowley, but I prefer Crowley.”

“What does the J stand for?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

Aziraphale blinked in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“Spy stuff. Super secret…spy stuff.”

“Oh, very well then.”

“I never tell anyone my middle name until at least the second date, you tease.”

Aziraphale felt his cheeks redden under his gaze. “So does that make this a date, then?”

“Dunno. Do you want it to be?” 

_More than you know._

“You are so full of questions, yet offer no answers.”

“Is that another quote?”

“No.”

“Oh.” He scratched the back of his head. “Thought it was.”

_Charming,_ Aziraphale thought.

“I’ll tell you what— if we can get away from this dreadful noise and all of the … _bebop,_ then yes. You may call this a date. Although, I think a true gentleman would at least ask my name before inviting me on a date.”

“In my defence, I’ve been wanting to know it since I saw you.”

“Right.”

“Well, what is it then?”

“Aziraphale,” he replied. “Aziraphale Fell.”

“Aziraphale Fell,” he repeated, turning it over in his mind. “That is a mouthful.”

“I know. I’m rather stuck with it, I’m afraid. I’ve thought about changing it for years, I’ve just never gotten around to it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It is a bit troubling for people, at first.”

“Well fuck ‘em,” Crowley scoffed, his voice tinged with annoyance. “They’ll adjust.”

Just like that, Crowley leapt to his feet. He offered Aziraphale a hand, tugging him up from his perch. “So, how about that date?”

“Lead the way.”

His agreement to go with Crowley, Aziraphale found, may have been offered a tad hastily. He had no idea that Crowley had ridden to the party on a motorcycle. 

“I am not going anywhere on that.” Aziraphale declared, digging his heels in (quite literally) at the end of Anathema’s drive. “We can take the bus.”

“No, we cannot. Wait— you didn’t drive here?”

Aziraphale shifted on his feet. “I don’t drive.”

“Huh.”

“It’s nearly midnight, Crowley. Where are we going to go, anyway? We can do this another time—”

“Come on, Aziraphale. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“We are going to die on that thing.”

“I’ve been riding my bike for nearly six years and I can assure you, I am still very much alive.” He fiddled with the straps on his black helmet before handing it to Aziraphale. “Here, you can even wear my helmet, if you’d like.”

“No— if you’re the one driving, then you need it the most.”

“So…does that mean you’ll come with me, then?”

Aziraphale sighed. _How could anyone on earth be so frustrating?_ “You are going to drive safely and obey all traffic laws, yes?”

“I promise.”

“Good. Because if you kill me, I’m going to have a hard time forgiving you for that.”

He put a hand to his chest. “‘ wouldn’t dream of it.”

Crowley beamed as he positioned himself on the bike, gesturing for Aziraphale to sit behind him. He held the bike steady as his companion joined him. “Just hold onto my waist for balance,” Crowley instructed him. “Hold on tight.”

“I intend to.”

Trust had always been a poison to Aziraphale. He seemed to struggle with it since birth. His solution: become a chameleon. Blend into the colour scheme in every room, nodding along to useless conversations while revealing very little about himself. And when he did say something— when a piece of him got out— there was always consequences. 

Better to sit alone on back porches with words and pages than to mingle with real people, he’d thought. 

And then here he was, his arms wrapped around the waist of a near perfect stranger, hoping to delay the punishment a little further. Hoping that this time, it would not come— that there would only be he and Crowley and the air passing around them like a caress. 

He leaned into Crowley as the bike sped up. He smelled of caffeine and cologne and worn leather. Aziraphale had to resist the urge to press his cheek to Crowley’s neck and breathe. 

Crowley called out something over his shoulder, but the words were muffled by his helmet and the buffeting winds. Aziraphale simply shuffled closer, squeezing his middle to indicate that he’d heard. 

It had been nearly a year since Aziraphale had had the opportunity to touch anyone, and even longer since he’d done so without pain. 

It occurred to him then that he would feel deeply satisfied even if the bike never reached it’s destination at all.

After what only felt like a rather short drive, the bike came to a halt outside of a dimly lit bar that Aziraphale had passed on his bus ride many times without ever feeling the impulse to step inside. Above the door blinked a small neon sign that read: Paradiso.

Crowley put the bike into park and Aziraphale reluctantly disembarked. 

“So, what do you think?”

“I think you’ve taken me to a seedy pub on the edge of town. Am I about to be murdered?”

“Relax, Aziraphale. It’s the only thing open this late at night. Tadfield isn’t exactly known for its night life.”

“Evidently.”

“Come on,” he said, nudging his arm, “give it a chance. You might actually like it. It doesn’t look like much, but they make an excellent chocolate cake here.”

“Do they?”

“Devil’s food.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Not angel food?”

Crowley pulled the door open for him with a smile. “Why on earth would they make that?”

The interior of the pub, in Aziraphale’s mind, failed to live up to its optimistic name. The lighting was dim and flickering, and a motley crew of misfits shuffled between dart boards and pool tables with drinks in hand. At least it was quieter than Anathema’s had been. A muffled hum of music drowned out the silences, and several tables were left empty as patrons shuffled between friends and the open door. 

All around was a sea of tattoos, gelled hair, and leather. It made Aziraphale want to disappear beneath the folds of his tweed jacket. He had always been this way—frumpy and formal, and out of place among his peers. Anathema told him once that he’d never been young, and he was increasingly afraid that she had been right.

Crowley pulled him out of his thoughts with a hand on his back as he pointed to a vacant booth at the back of the pub. “Why don’t you grab that table and I’ll get us some cake.”

Aziraphale nodded, grateful to retreat to the edge of things, out of sight and out of mind.

He watched as Crowley chatted with the barkeep, gladly taking two tall glasses in hand and balancing a plate of devil’s food on the other.

“Voila,” he said, pushing the plate towards Aziraphale. “The best devil’s food in Tadfield.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Aziraphale teased, already reaching for his fork. “Mmm, you are right my dear. This is _scrumptious.”_

Crowley’s gaze fell to his water glass as he adjusted his sunglasses. “Er— I— does anyone still say ‘scrumptious’ anymore?”

“At least one person does,” Aziraphale told him, pushing the plate between them on the table. “Won’t you try some? I thought we were doing this together?”

“I’m fine,” Crowley shrugged. “It’s all yours.”

“Well at least take some of the frosting. I see how you’ve been eyeing it.”

Crowley conceded with a groan as he began nudging at the frosting with his fork. It took only a few seconds for him to give up on this venture, and swipe his finger across the edge of the cake.

“You _animal.”_ Aziraphale chided.

Crowley smiled back, unscathed. “So…tell me about yourself. What’s your story, Aziraphale Fell?”

“Oh, nothing too interesting, I’m afraid. What about yours?”

“No, no— I asked you first.”

“If you insist.” Aziraphale sighed, returning his fork to the table. “There’s really not much to tell. I left home when I was eighteen..”

“Where was home?”

“Wales.”

“Ah.”

“I tried life in London for a bit, but I was much too lonely and I couldn’t keep up with the rent payments, so I thought I’d try the country life. It didn’t agree with me either, really, until Anathema helped me get a job at the Tadfield Library. Since then, I’ve just been reading and working, and trying to save whatever money I can.”

“For what? A big trip somewhere?”

“I don’t know, really,” Aziraphale confessed, feeling a tad foolish. “It just seems like the right thing.”

“I see,” Crowley said, swiping another line of frosting and promptly licking it.

Aziraphale did his best not to stare too intently. “Well, now it’s your turn. What’s your story, Crowley?”

He chuckled, staring back down into his water. “Well, it feels more like a series of events rather than a story, but here it goes: Got kicked out when I was fifteen, crashed with my friend Bee until I could get on my feet. Now…I’m here. I work at a bike shop in town doing repairs and painting and finishing. Bee had always wanted to open a pub— they’re the one at the bar, just there.”

Aziraphale followed Crowley’s gesture towards the dark haired figure at the bar. Their dark clothes and pinched expression seemed harsh and off-putting, but Aziraphale already felt an affection for them, knowing that they had taken care of Crowley.

“So I guess you could say that I kind of followed them here. They’ve been something of an older sibling to me, but if you ever tell them that, I’ll have to kill you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Aziraphale watched as Crowley took a sip of his water. He couldn’t imagine Crowley as a young boy, being shunned like that by his own family. Except that, he could. The same had happened to him, only three years later. _Is that why he behaves the way he does? Cloaking himself in black and escaping conversation at parties?_

He certainly had a right to, Aziraphale thought. He had been strong from a very young age— the universe had demanded it of him. 

“I’m sorry that you had to leave home when you were so young,” Aziraphale told him. “That must have been very hard.”

Crowley shrugged, fingers toying idly with the now-empty glass. “It was a long time ago. I’m fine now.”

_Is ‘fine’ every really achievable in the aftermath of something? Aziraphale wondered. A broken teacup can be mended with glue, but the cracks will always be there._

“Do you think that you’ll ever leave Tadfield? Now that Bee has accomplished their goal, I mean.”

Crowley hummed, muling it over. “I dunno. I suppose I could. It’s not like I have anything keeping me here.”

Aziraphale nodded solemnly. _Why was he always late to everything?_ “Oh.”

“Although, I don’t really have anything pulling me away, either.” Crowley picked at his collar, adjusting it higher and lowering it back down.

_Was he nervous? What could he possibly have to be nervous about?_

“I guess I’ve just never really felt at home anywhere, you know? Like, I live in Tadfield, and I have a life here, but I’m not really a part of it.” He bristled at his words. “Sometimes I think that I don’t really know how to live. I don’t know what to say or do, or where to put my hands. I’m just trying to fill up the days instead of actually living in them, if that makes any sense.”

The man scrubbed a hand down his face, a half-gasp, half-laugh caught in his throat. “Wow, I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

“No, no. It’s…the truth. Real truths barely make sense if they’re even spoken at all. But your meaning is not lost on me.”

He eyed him sceptically. “Really?”

“Mhm.” Aziraphale nodded. “I have a similar relationship with fiction, I’m afraid. I like to disappear into my books when I read them, leaving the real work and all of its knives behind. I suppose you could say that I’ve managed to make a career out of escapism.”

Crowley frowned, leaning forward in his seat. “What are you trying to escape from, Aziraphale?”

Just then, the doors to the pub swung open. A group of slouching, intoxicated revellers stumbled through it— the remnants of Anathema’s party spilling inside like dark wine.

Gabriel was among them. He swaggered in before the rest of his companions, his hair still gelled and his varsity jacket impeccable despite his obvious drunkenness. Infuriating, that he should always look that way— so effortlessly cool and suave, even though Aziraphale knew for a fact that it was a charade. He’d seen him perched over the bathroom mirror so many times, combing his hair and scrutinizing every last detail. 

At first, he’d appreciated Aziraphale’s help. A quick fix of his crooked tie, a hand to smooth down an errant curl. But his gratitude didn’t last. Eventually, he took Aziraphale’s helping hands as insults. A flawed, worthless creature attempting to criticize his own beauty. Gabriel was an expert at playing injured while he himself held the weapon in his hands.

_Please don’t look this way, please don’t look this way,_ Aziraphale chanted to himself. 

He looked at the cake in front of him and heard Gabriel’s words: _You’re not really going to eat that, are you? Don’t you think you’ve had enough?_

“You ok, Aziraphale?” Crowley asked, looking between Aziraphale’s gaze and the door.

“I’m fine,” he assured him, in his least-assuring voice. “I just need some air.”

Aziraphale rushed to the backdoor of the pub, gasping for air as he stepped outside. 

The parking lot was foggy and damp when Aziraphale reached it. He watched as it began to rain, lightly at first, but gaining strength and intensity as the minutes passed. Aziraphale watched the raindrops from beneath the narrow awning and wished that he could fall, too. It might come as a relief to reach the bottom and know that there was no distance still to fall.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley asked, stepping through the door with a Styrofoam container and a concerned expression. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes, yes, fine. Never better.” He hated the way the lie sounded as it left his lips. 

_Pathetic._

“The thing is,” Crowley said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think that you are.”

Aziraphale shook his head minutely, doing his best to dissociate before he ruined the evening with his tears.

“Would you like to tell me what’s gotten you so upset?”

Once again, Aziraphale shook his head.

“That’s alright. Just don’t go thinking yourself into a coma. I wouldn’t know what to do, then.”

Crowley waited for Aziraphale to smile at his words before he did.

“I must look so foolish,” Aziraphale sniffed, stifling a laugh. “I go and meet someone wonderful and here I am spoiling it.”

“You have spoiled nothing.” Crowley assured him. Even behind the glasses, he had a softness to his face that Aziraphale hadn’t noticed inside the pub. “I’m pretty sure I’d do anything to change that sad look on your face, though.”

“I am sorry.”

“No, not at all.” Crowley said, rubbing small circles into Aziraphale’s shoulder blade. “Where do you live? I’ll take you home.”

“I live on the edge of town,” Aziraphale told him, refusing to look up from the glints of moonlight in the puddle in front of him. “The weather is too poor, I couldn’t ask you to drive me all the way there. I’ll take the bus.”

“No, you will not. I’m not leaving you alone after this.” Crowley sighed, sounding more sympathetic than annoyed. “Tell you what— my apartment is nearby. Why don’t you come and stay with me for tonight?”

“I couldn’t—”

“Hey, there’s no strings attached, ok? I have what has been called an _excellent_ pull-out couch. You can stay there, and tomorrow I’ll take you home, alright?”

“Alright.”

“Alright.”

Crowley stared at him, hand still hovering over his shoulder. He waited until Aziraphale’s breathing evened out before pulling away. He then tugged off his scarf and began wrapping the warm black fabric around Aziraphale’s neck.

“Better?” He asked.

“Better,” Aziraphale sniffed.

“Good. Now let’s get you home.”

Crowley slung his arm protectively around Aziraphale’ shoulders as they made their way to the bike. 

Aziraphale leaned into the warmth, thanking whatever powers may be for Mary Oliver, devil’s food, and every decision he’d made that led him here, to the dimly lit parking lot of _Paradiso._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading Chapter 1! I hope you enjoyed it :-) I've been toying with the idea of this fic for weeks, so I'm very happy to be writing it out at last.


	2. A Ship

Some nights you are the lighthouse  
Some nights the sea  
What this means is that I don't know  
Desire other than the need  
To be shattered & rebuilt  
The mind forgetting  
\- Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds

The drive back to Crowley’s apartment was short, even in the rain. Droplets fell around them like minutes, barely touching their skin as the motorcycle whizzed by, the road a dizzying grey beneath them. It took Aziraphale out of himself, seeing the world like this. A melted oil painting that fuzzed at the edges as they flew by. It grounded him further with every street sign they passed, his hands grasped tightly around Crowley’s waist. The dampness kept Aziraphale’s jacket pressed to his skin, and he nestled closer to Crowley for warmth as he drove, though it did little good. Crowley’s body was just as frozen, if not more.

He had given Aziraphale his scarf.

“Almost there!” He cried over the hum of the engine.

Aziraphale nodded, his chin bumping Crowley’s shoulder in silent acknowledgement.

Crowley’s flat, it turned out, was conveniently located over a record shop on the edge of town. As Crowley pulled into the parking lot of Dis-topia Records, Aziraphale realized it was only a short walk from the Tadfield Library.

 _Would Crowley come and visit him there while he worked?_ He pictured Crowley lounging across the suede reading chair in the corner— the one Aziraphale liked to claim during his breaks— while he stacked books alongside him. He imagined Crowley reading while he worked, pausing now and then to share a line or a phrase he’d discovered between the pages.

 _Slow down,_ the American chided him. _There’s still plenty of time for you to screw it up._

Then, Aziraphale: Why do you always have to ask for so _much?_

“Well,” said Crowley, twisting towards Aziraphale as he put the bike into park. “Here we are.”

The man’s gaze fell to Aziraphale’s arms and he realized with a start that they were still wrapped tightly around Crowley’s waist. He dropped them, tugging the scarf tighter around his neck.

“Come on then,” said Crowley, extending a hand to help him off of the bike. 

He then opened the seat compartment and plucked Mary Oliver from her hiding place. “We can’t forget her,” he said, tucking the book into his helmet to keep out the rain.

Aziraphale attempted to smile, but hadn’t the slightest clue if he’d managed it. His faculties were dimmed by the gesture as well as the hand on his back that guided him through the car park. 

The quiet glow of the streetlights did wonders for Crowley’s pale complexion. He was a wet and shining mess of jawline and hips (Aziraphale had forced himself to look away when Crowley’s shirt rode up as he dismounted the bike, he really did), and his hair shone with flecks of auburn and chestnut all mixed together in the darkness. It all made Aziraphale want to act. To touch Crowley and his dishevelled hair and make it worse. To step into his space and ruffle him with his gratitude. 

But he did none of those things. He simply followed Crowley in silence towards the building, and up the back stairs. 

Aziraphale was no stranger to temptation; it called out to him often with a voice that sounded suspiciously like his own. It begged him to surrender his timidness to the hunger inside of him, the one he’d been tamping down for far too long. That voice— not Gabriel’s, but his own— that begged for things. For closeness and warmth and an end to solitude. It frightened him sometimes, just how loudly his heart could pound. 

There is a passage by Ocean Vuong that Aziraphale has underlined in ink more times than he is willing to admit. (In fact, he would never admit to defacing any book, but some lines are too dear to be left unacknowledged) It reads: Some nights, you are the lighthouse / Some nights, the sea. Well, Aziraphale counts himself as a third, unnamed element. He is a ship. A ship that has been adrift far too long and is slowly filling with water. He cries out for aid— for a bucket or a hand to help him toss out the seawater from his hull— but it never comes. 

And when the ship goes down (as ships do), he tells himself that he will be ready. That he’s no stranger to a bit of salt, and maybe the seawater in his lungs won’t always feel like a burden. Perhaps they’ll hold him in place and the wandering will finally stop. His feet will hit the bottom of the ocean, and the broken ship will fall around him like a ribcage, penning him in. Protecting him. And nothing will ever change, ever again.

These are all things that Aziraphale has considered. He wants to be thorough, planning for every eventuality.

It had never occurred to Aziraphale to look for a life raft. 

Or a motorcycle.

It must be said that Aziraphale was not in the practice of going home with strangers. It stunned him a little, just how easy it was to follow this dark and gentle man whom he had not known the day before. To surrender his doubts and go home with a stranger, even if not in the manner he would like. But Crowley was easy to follow— he never looked back to check that Aziraphale was with him still. He just knew. He _trusted_ him.

“So…” Crowley began, fiddling with his keys before touching the lock. “It’s not the best…I mean, it’s fine. It’s a fine apartment. I just haven’t had a chance to…”

“I’m sure your home is lovely,” Aziraphale told him, leaning against the railing.

“Right. Sure.”

Crowley stepped back, gesturing for Aziraphale to enter. Inside, he found a clean, though sparsely decorated space. White walls and hardwood floors were interrupted by occasional flecks of shadow. Aziraphale glanced nervously about the room, searching for any ounce of information it might reveal about its tenant. Instead, the space felt like a hotel room, a stopping place on the way to somewhere else. A black sofa here, folding table there…the living room led into the kitchen and the only signs of habitation were half-empty coffee mugs and the occasional lamp.

“I’ll get those,” Crowley muttered, darting to remove two mugs from the living room table. 

Aziraphale felt his heart clench in his chest. _Had there been a guest?_

Crowley shifted, eyeing him as he looked about. “They’re mine,” he said. “In case you’re wondering. ’m just forgetful.” 

“Of course,” Aziraphale smiled, glowing with a sense of relief strong enough to power every streetlamp in London for a year.

“I’ll get the couch set up,” Crowley announced. “Why don’t you go and get washed up? The bathroom is just there, at the end of the hall.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Aziraphale lied. He’d been cold and damp ever since they left the shelter of Paradiso, but he wasn’t about to admit to it— not when Crowley was being so kind.

“Hmm,” Crowley took a step towards him, skeptical.  
Aziraphale held his breath as the man pinched the fabric of his sleeve between his fingers and frowned. “Look at you, you’re soaked. Go on, take a shower.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

Crowley frowned, “Why would I mind?”

_Because I’m adding to the laundry, stepping into your space and making more work for you. Because I should be more polite and keep my wants to myself. Like how I want to kiss you for being so kind to me. And how I want to have breakfast with you in the morning like people do, pretending that I belong here._

_I think that I would like to belong wherever you are, and that terrifies me._

Crowley waited for an answer, but Aziraphale simply shrugged. 

“Ok. So, you go and take a shower, and I’ll find you something to wear. I’ll just leave some pyjamas outside the door for you, alright?”

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said.

He looked up and met Crowley’s eyes. He could just barely make out his dark pupils from behind the glasses, but once again his laugh lines gave him away. Even in the lamplight, he could tell the man was smiling.

Huh. Perhaps he was not the only one pleased to be here. Perhaps Crowley _wanted_ him here.

_Don’t push your luck._

Aziraphale found the bathroom easily enough. It was small and sparse, consistent with the rest of Crowley’s home, as though Crowley didn’t belong there at all.

He turned on the water, trying and failing to avoid his reflection in the mirror. He wanted desperately to feel that he was ready for this. All the glass had to tell him was that his hands were still shaking. That, and the fact that he himself was painfully average.

 _You could be handsome if you tried,_ the voice told him, bitterly. _You just need to put in a bit of effort._

He sighed as the hot water washed over him. The coldness of the night began to release its hold on him as he stood, face to the water, reflecting. 

It had been months since he’d last seen Gabriel. Or at least, since Gabriel had last seen him. Since then, Aziraphale has avoided open spaces and hidden corners. He surveys every room he enters in search of that smug face, and when he doesn’t find it, he creates it; pulling shudders closed over his heart in anticipation of the wind he can’t shut out.

It’s all very unfair, really, how Aziraphale had been the one to leave, but still feels left. How Gabriel can party and go to bars while he looks both ways before crossing the street, hallways, and any other path that leaves him open and exposed.

He faced the water until his thoughts settled beneath the pressure. 

Though they never settled for long.

True to his word, Crowley had left some clean clothes outside the door for him. He reached an arm through the door to retrieve a black t-shirt and grey lounge pants. 

_Those will never fit you,_ the voice said. _You’ll ruin his fine clothes._

Surely Crowley knew that. Surely he wouldn’t have given me clothes that he felt he could never part with, Aziraphale reasoned, putting them on. The shirt was snug around his curves, and he did his best to ignore it, carrying out his damp clothes in front of him like a shield.

“There you are.” Crowley said, impervious to Aziraphale’s inner crisis. He reached for Aziraphale’s clothes. “I’ll take those. ‘Hang em up.”

“Oh you don’t have to.”

“‘course I will. No trouble. There’s tea on the stove, if you’d like some.”

Aziraphale set to the task of pouring tea for two while Crowley hung his clothes to dry in the hall closet. Once finished, he took a seat at the island across from Aziraphale, accepting his mug gladly. His shirt looked as though it had been soaked right through, and it clung to him as he leaned over the mug, breathing in the warmth.

“So…are you feeling better, now?”

“I am, rather. And I’m sorry for—”

Crowley shook his head. “Nope. None of that. Happy to help.” He took a sip of his tea, recoiling as it burnt him. “I’m no stranger to panic attacks.”

“Really?” Aziraphale couldn’t imagine it. Crowley looked so cool and confident— he couldn’t imagine him paralyzed by his own mind.

“Yup. Pretty sure I had one yesterday. Sorry to break it to you, but you’re not special.”

Aziraphale grinned, hiding behind his coffee mug and the grey countertop. He had a quick retort perched on his tongue, but let it fall away when he noticed Crowley shivering. “Your turn. You look as though you need a shower, too.”

“Right,” he agreed, practically leaping from the chair. “You can settle in, if you’d like. The sofa’s all made up for you.”

“Thank you.”

“And…” he scrubbed a hand down his face, as though he did not want to continue with his own sentence. “You should get some rest, but…maybe in the morning we can talk about what happened? It you’d like to?”

“I think that sounds sensible, yes.”

“Alright. Yes; good.” He spun around on his heel and swiftly darted down the hall.

Aziraphale really had no idea what Crowley could be expecting. _What was he to say?_

_The thing is, Crowley, my life has been in tatters for years, thanks for asking. It’s made me the sort of awkward bloke who brings books to parties and trusts no one and avoids any and all conversations that don’t revolve around fiction or the weather. Thanks for the cuppa, I’ll see myself out._

Still, he owed him an answer. As comfortable as he felt in Crowley’s presence, he was still a stranger. And yet Crowley had invited him into his home like it was nothing. Like he was pleased to have the company.

And maybe he was.

_Who are you kidding?_

Maybe he _is._

Aziraphale found the pull-out sofa topped with a thick grey blanket (was _everything_ in this apartment monochromatic?) and a pillow. Although it hardly lived up to Crowley’s bold praise, it would do for the night, at least.

It warmed his soul to find Mary Oliver there, too, placed delicately atop the blanket like an invitation. He settled in with it, switching on the table lamp to read and, hopefully, settle his nerves.

An impossible task, when there’s a shower running in the background. 

A shower asks certain questions, you know. Like what Crowley might look like dripping with water and tiredness, his skin smelling of shampoo and lavender. Odd for Crowley to have lavender, Aziraphale thought. He’d used it gladly, and still smelled it on his skin even now, under a blanket in the next room. He smelled like _Crowley._

_And what if Crowley took his showers like Aziraphale? With near-scalding water that left a red patch on his chest like handprints? And if he did, would they match? ___

__The shower flicked off, and Aziraphale reopened the book._ _

__He listened to wet footsteps as they padded gently towards him._ _

___Don’t look at him; he’ll see too much of you._ _ _

__Crowley leaned over the back of the sofa, peering down at him. His hair was dripping at the ends, and he had changed into a dark Henley that hung low, revealing a delicious set of collarbones._ _

__Aziraphale’s heart stopped as he looked up at him._ _

__“You good?”_ _

__“Yes. I believe I am.”_ _

__“Good. ’s good.” Still, the man lingered by his side. His dark glasses were gone, but it was still too dim to make out the path of his eyes. Aziraphale’s glasses were hanging with his coat, but he didn’t have the heart to break the moment by asking for them. For now, the man’s face was little more than a blurred shadow or an impressionist painting._ _

__Aziraphale could hear his soft breathing as he stood there, refusing to leave._ _

__“Are you ok, sleeping out here?”_ _

__“Yes, of course. It’s very nice.” Aziraphale told him, pointedly avoiding the collarbones he would soon be seeing in his sleep._ _

__“Because, I can sleep out here, too, if you’d like.”_ _

__Aziraphale frowned. “On the floor?”_ _

__“Why not?”_ _

__“Well you certainly don’t have to.”_ _

__“I know.” He raised a hand to his mouth, picking away at a nail as he stared over Aziraphale and into the room. “‘Never had a guest here before. Feels kind of weird just abandoning you here.”_ _

__“You are _not_ abandoning me,” Aziraphale told him. “You should get some rest.”_ _

__“Right.” He cleared his throat, knocking the sofa twice with his hand. “Goodnight, then.”_ _

__“Goodnight, Crowley.”_ _

__The footsteps retreated to the bedroom._ _

__Aziraphale heard the door swing shut only to fly open a moment later. Crowley’s footsteps pounded the floor as he hurried back, a red blanket in tow._ _

__“‘Tried it. Couldn’t do it.”_ _

__Aziraphale sat up, abandoning Mary Oliver to the floor below. “Crowley! You certainly don’t mean to sleep on the floor in your own home?”_ _

__“I do.” He tossed the blanket unceremoniously onto the hardwood, folding it in half to shelter him from above and below. “Honestly Aziraphale, it’s my home, I’ll do what I bloody like.”_ _

__“But won’t you be uncomfortable?”_ _

__“Nah. I don’t feel like sleeping anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.”_ _

__Aziraphale watched as Crowley settled under his blanket before doing the same, settling back down with his novel alongside him. “Do you…often have trouble sleeping?”_ _

__“Sometimes,” he admitted, eyes flicking up at him. “You?”_ _

__The way his wet hair shone against the lamplight, brown with golden flecks of light— was downright unfair._ _

__“Me what?”_ _

__Crowley quirked a smile. “Do you have trouble sleeping?”_ _

___Yes, most nights._ _ _

__“Sometimes.”_ _

__Crowley hummed, rubbing at his eyes. “Anxiety doesn’t help, either. It can be hard to sleep after…” his hand dangled in front of him as he spoke, as if searching for a handhold. “…you know.”_ _

__Aziraphale sighed. “Yes. It can be. I didn’t plan on getting much sleep tonight, either.”_ _

__“So…would talking help? Or are you more of the strong silent type?”_ _

__“I don’t know, exactly. I don’t really talk about it.”_ _

__“Strong silent type— I knew it. Nothin’ sexier than repressed feelings, let me tell you.”_ _

__Aziraphale choked out a laugh. _“Alright, that’s enough of that.”__ _

__Crowley stared up at him intently from his home on the living room floor. The wounded part of Aziraphale that he liked to keep hidden was creeping up on him. He could feel it shaking free of his heart to take up residence in his mouth. He wanted irrationally to reach down and take Crowley’s hand as he spoke, but he could not possibly do both and come out alive on the other side._ _

__It occurred to him that if he were to open his mouth now, it might start digging his grave._ _

__“I suppose I owe you a proper explanation.”_ _

__“No, no— I mean— I just want to know what I said so that I don’t say it again.”_ _

__“It wasn’t you!” Aziraphale assured him. “It had nothing to do with you.”_ _

__“It wasn’t?” He asked, his expression pinched and serious all of a sudden._ _

__“No, it most certainly was _not.”__ _

__“That’s a relief. So it was that lot at the pub, then?”_ _

__“It was.” Aziraphale nodded, grateful for the book in his hands, anchoring him to the earth. “I’m not sure if Anathema told you, but I… I was in something of a bad relationship, in the past.”_ _

__“I didn’t know that.” Crowley said, waiting._ _

__“Well…his name was Gabriel, and he was…something else. I was with him for about two years before I was able to leave— before I had the courage to leave,” he corrected._ _

__Crowley watched him stoically, a hand pressed firmly to his jaw as if to keep himself from speaking._ _

__“Gabriel was always pleasant when we were in public, you see. So no one really knew how he treated me. He was always growing angry with me for one thing or another. He’s quite the perfectionist, so living with me was quite a challenge for him, I can tell you.” He cleared his throat. “It was only after he started getting violent that Anathema asked me if something was wrong.”_ _

__His words floated up to the ceiling like balloons, hovering there, and he wanted to reach up and pull them all back down. _I take it back!_ His hands would shout. _I never meant for me to float away!__ _

__“Aziraphale…” Crowley’s hand fell on the floor between them, outstretched as if seeking to bridge the distance between them without actually touching; a ghostly gesture.“I am so sorry.”_ _

__“It’s fine.”_ _

__Crowley’s voice fell heavily around him. “No, it’s not.”_ _

__“Well, no, but it is over, now. Anathema was a great help to me. She pulled some strings to get me the position at the library, and I’ve been on my own ever since.”_ _

__Crowley propped himself up on an arm, his face pinched as though he were puzzling over a difficult maths equation. “You said that you left home when you were 18, right?”_ _

__“I did.”_ _

__“So…was Gabriel the reason you left?”_ _

__“No,” he said, closing his eyes. “I left because my parents discovered that I was…”_ _

__“Gay,” Crowley finished, with a weight of understanding that spoke for itself._ _

__“Yes. I should have known…should have predicted what would happen, but I didn’t. They were very religious people; so was I, for a time. I brushed off so many flippant comments and warning signs… Anyway. When they discovered who I was and they decided not to be my parents anymore.”_ _

__He nodded. “So you went from one abusive home to another.”_ _

__The ceiling above Aziraphale was fascinating. Small patterns of plaster and chipped white paint, pieces of colour hanging on the edge, on the verge of tumbling down like snow. “I never thought about it like that before.”_ _

__Slowly, Crowley lifted his hand. He reached for Aziraphale’s hand where it lay atop the blanket and began tracing the bumps of Aziraphale’s knuckles with his index finger, grounding him. “I am so _tremendously_ sorry that you had to go through that.”_ _

__“Thank you,” Aziraphale sniffed, counting the wet sound in his throat as a personal betrayal. “Apart from Anathema, I’ve never told anyone that before.”_ _

__“Then thank you for trusting me,” Crowley said._ _

__With a nod, Aziraphale captured Crowley’s outstretched hand in his own, winding their fingers together. Crowley wriggled closer on the floor, giving him better access. He swiped his thumb across Aziraphale’s hand over and over, saying nothing and staring up towards the ceiling._ _

__Aziraphale had just wrenched out his own heart with a butcher knife while Crowley laid there quietly, doing him the favour of looking away as he salvaged the pieces of himself in thought._ _

__They were silent for what seemed like minutes before Crowley spoke again._ _

__“Now please give me Gabriel’s last name and address so I can go kill him for you.”_ _

___“Stop.”_ _ _

__“‘Probably don’t even need the address, really. Just the name so that I have something to google.”_ _

__Aziraphale laughed wetly, picturing Crowley’s face without actually looking at it. He was lovely._ _

__“I’m serious, Aziraphale. One word from you, and I’m there. No questions asked.”_ _

__“Then you shall never hear the word from me, but it pleases me to hear you say so.”_ _

__Crowley squeezed his hand and Aziraphale did the same._ _

__“This is lovely,” Aziraphale told him, “but I’m afraid my arm has fallen asleep.”_ _

__“Mine too,” Crowley admitted, his eyes fluttering in slow, languid blinks. He pulled his hand away. “Read me something.”_ _

__“I beg your pardon?”_ _

__“Mary Oliver. Read me a poem, and then we can get some rest.” He paused. “I won’t leave you alone until you do.”_ _

___Then I shall never read another word,_ Aziraphale thought._ _

__“Alright then.”_ _

__Crowley folded his arms across his chest, his breaths slowing as he waited, listening._ _

__With a deep breath, Aziraphale began:_ _

__“I have refused to live  
locked in the orderly house of  
reasons and proofs.  
The world I live in and believe in  
Is wider than that. And anyway,  
what’s wrong with Maybe?  
You wouldn’t believe what once or  
twice I have seen. I’ll just  
tell you this:  
only if there are angels in your head will you  
ever, possibly, see one.”_ _

__“Huh,” said Crowley, releasing a puff of air. “’s funny.”_ _

__“Funny?”_ _

__“Yeah. Because with that lamp on beside you, it looks like you’re glowing.”_ _

__“Does it?”_ _

__“Yes,” he replied, matter-of-factly. “It makes your curls look light…like a halo.”_ _

__“Stop it.”_ _

__“I won’t,” he yawned, rolling over to face the back wall._ _

__The next phrase, he spoke in a whisper: “Goodnight, Angel.”_ _

__“Goodnight, dear.”_ _

__Aziraphale stared up at the lamp, grinning and dying in the exact same moment._ _

__

__The morning awakened Aziraphale not with light, but with music. Or rather, the hum of rhythm emanating from a pair of headphones as they glided across the kitchen tiles._ _

__Aziraphale sat up tentatively, lifting his head just enough to peer into the kitchen from behind the couch._ _

__Crowley was _dancing._ Or at least, that’s what it looked like. The man’s lanky frame drifted from one task to the next as he tossed a couple of eggs into the frying pan and dropped bread in the toaster, his hips rising and falling as he padded across the wooden floors._ _

__Aziraphale clasped a hand to his mouth to keep from laughing. Any ounce of Crowley’s cool veneer from the night before was abandoned as he— what’s the word? Flapped about? Gyrated?— through the kitchen._ _

__As carefully as he could, Aziraphale rose, tiptoeing towards the kitchen while Crowley had his back to him, working the frying pan over the stove. As he stepped closer, he thought he recognized the song._ _

__“Is that Pink?”_ _

__“Jesus Christ!” Crowley leapt back as though he’d been burned, the pan clattering down atop the stove. “I thought you were asleep! Holy shit!”_ _

__“I’m sorry!” Aziraphale said, giggling. “I heard music, I had to come. You look like you were having quite a fun time.”_ _

__“Uh-huh.”_ _

__“You’re a good dancer.”_ _

__“Shut up.” He smiled as he said it, abandoning his headphones on the counter._ _

__Aziraphale reached for his iPhone before he could grab it. “What were you listening to?”_ _

__“Nothing.”_ _

__“I was right!” He exclaimed, staring at the screen. “Pink.”_ _

__The screen displayed a glossy album cover, and the lyrics to _U and Ur Hand.__ _

__“Hey, she’s a good singer.”_ _

__“I agree.”_ _

__“The song is good for dancing, there’s nothing wrong with it.”_ _

__“I agree entirely, my dear.” Aziraphale said, returning his phone to him. “Next time, you’ll have to give me a bit of warning that we’re going to have a dance party.”_ _

__“Next time?” Crowley asked, his eyebrows rising and falling like a cartoon character. “So you plan to stay over in the future, then? That’s good to know.”_ _

__Aziraphale felt his face redden as Crowley handed him his breakfast plate. He swiftly took it to the dining table where he looked at nothing else._ _

__Crowley joined him with a cup of coffee in hand._ _

__“You’re not going to eat anything?”_ _

__He shrugged. “I’m not big on breakfast.”_ _

__“Excuse me for saying so, but I haven’t the slightest earthly concept of what it must be like to live that way.”_ _

__In the span of about four seconds, Crowley laughed, accidentally inhaled his coffee, and began choking._ _

__“I’m sorry!” Aziraphale said, patting his back as he sputtered over his drink._ _

__“You’re going to be the death of me,” Crowley said, slowly regaining his composure. “I just know it.”_ _

__Aziraphale rested his hand on Crowley’s forearm, holding it there a moment longer than he felt he should. The weight of last night’s confession hung heavy in the air, but so did the smell of breakfast. Life continued much faster than Aziraphale thought it would, and he was grateful. Waking up in Crowley’s house, watching him dance in the kitchen with hair mussed from sleep…it was like being invited inside of a dream. It saddened Aziraphale to think he’d ever have to leave._ _

__“Listen,” Crowley began, apologetically, “I have to be at work in an hour. I could call in, but I’ve missed some days recently, and I don’t think…”_ _

__“You should go,” Aziraphale told him, returning to the breakfast in front of him. “Don’t let me get in the way of your work.”_ _

__“Believe me, I would love it if you did. I just can’t really…uh, you know. Right. So I’ll take you home on the way there, yeah?”_ _

__Aziraphale nodded, though he did not want to._ _

__“And I’m going to have to give you my number, because I expect you to keep me updated on our friend, Mary.”_ _

__“Naturally,” Aziraphale said, handing him his phone._ _

__

__The ride back to Aziraphale’s was long and sweet. The weather had brightened since the night before, the chill of evening swiftly forgotten as the sun shone overhead. Aziraphale, tired and still a little raw, pressed his face to Crowley’s shoulder the entire way. If Crowley noticed, he didn’t seem to mind._ _

__They reached the farmhouse around 11, much to Aziraphale’s dismay._ _

__“You live in a _cottage?”_ Crowley marvelled, studying the brown-bricked structure and its paisley shutters._ _

__“Hardly. It’s a renovated farm house. And I only rent the flat on the top floor.”_ _

__“Semantics. It has flower baskets on the windowsills. _Flowers.”__ _

__“Still not a cottage.”_ _

__“Hmph,” said Crowley, eloquently. He nodded as Aziraphale returned his scarf to him._ _

__“Thanks again, Crowley. For everything.”_ _

__“Don’t mention it.” He fiddled with the handles of his bike, his glasses darkening his expression. He kept glancing between Aziraphale and the road, as if conflicted. “Hey, maybe I’ll see you around the library, sometime?”_ _

__“Really?”_ _

__“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about getting a library card.”_ _

__“Have you?”_ _

__“Yup. I’ll need some help with that, I think. Probably mountains of paperwork.”_ _

__“Loads.”_ _

__“We’ll be at it all day. Gotta give you something to do, anyway. At your cushy job.”_ _

__“Crowley, you’re stalling. You should go; I don’t want you to be late.”_ _

__He nodded, more to himself than to anyone else. “See you around, Angel.”_ _

__Aziraphale watched as he sped out of the driveway, a black shadow against the light of morning._ _

__“I believe you will,” he said, and disappeared into the house._ _

____

____

____

____

____

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I agree with Crowley....these two will be the death of me!
> 
> Thanks everyone for your kind comments— they really motivated me when writing chapter 2!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it :)


	3. The Library

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror  
Which we are barely able to endure,  
And it amazes us so,  
Because it serenely disdains to destroy us.  
Every angel is terrible.  
\- Rainer Maria Rilke

At 524 King Street, Crowley shares a flat with a lion.

Not many people know this. He’s told a few, sure. A date, once (it didn’t last long after that). And he once told the story to Bee when they were both sloshing drunk at Paradiso. It’s not something that can be brought up so easily in conversation, but when it does, it brings the conversation to an abrupt and decisive halt.

Crowley lives with a lion. This is not entirely true— just the marrow of it. Someday, his heart pounds away while he distracts himself with anything he can find. In those moments, fear seems like an external thing. As a child, he imagined it was a beast; a dragon or a demon; it would circle the room with him in it, stalking his prey while his heart rate rose until he couldn’t breathe. As an adult, the monster has become a lion. Metaphors are as malleable as we are. As we evolve, so do our thoughts. Our fears.

The lion always starts at the furthest doorway. It lingers there, listening. Will Crowley fight him today? Or will he bow willingly? (Lately, it’s been a tossup) He enters at the same time as Crowley’s thoughts as if they’re bleeding into the air, enticing him. Very rarely does the lion leap at him. Usually, he just wants company. He stalks around the couch where Crowley is seated, licking his chops in anticipation of the feast.

When the moment comes, he simply sits next to him on the sofa cushion. That’s when he knows he’s lost— when his fears are inside of him and next to him in the same moment. 

Has anyone ever told you to allow your feelings to sit in the room with you? Horrible advice. The only sensible thing to do is to run.

These days, that’s what Crowley does. He listens to music that’s far too loud, he talks to himself, and he runs. Far.

The strange thing about the lion is, he never comes when there’s a reason. Sure, some days at the shop are long and he comes home with fingers that ache from gripping paint bottles and tools all day, but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes the lion comes when he is strong. When he’s content, thinking about Mary Oliver and strangers who sleep on your couch and look at you like you’ve given them gold.

You’re never safe from the lion you know.

Texting helps.

He’s spoken to Aziraphale more this past week than he has anyone, possibly ever. He’d never been much of a tester before now. His message history showcases occasional check-ins at work and the biweekly “piss off” directed at Bee and whatever snark he’d received from the disgruntled barman. (Disgruntled is far too mild, but Crowley isn’t in the mood to think on it any harder)

And now, an ongoing back-and-forth with a contact labelled “Angel”— effectively guaranteeing that he will never allow Bee to look at his phone ever again.

Despite Aziraphale’s devotion to his work, he still checks in from time to time. Mary Oliver quotes come in throughout the day as well as Wordsworth, his new companion among the stacks. He sends Crowley pieces of them along with questions like _‘how are you, my dear?’_ and _‘how’s your day?’_

Every _‘my dear’_ that crosses his screen stops his heart, if only for a moment.

It’s been pleasant, but not nearly enough. The in-between moments of his day when Crowley can be thoughtful (always a bad idea— thinking is highly overrated), he thinks of the gentle stranger who ate breakfast at his table that morning. The one who sat outside reading at a party only to read to him later, in the privacy of his living room. His gorgeous mouth colouring every word with passion as he read patiently from the couch.

It had been years since Crowley had seen Pride and Prejudice, but he reminded himself of it every time he remembered the softness of Aziraphale’s hand and the way it held his that night when he bore his soul to him. He needed to feel it again. To feel the weight of it in his.

To feel Aziraphale holding on to _him,_ too.

It was all incredibly distracting. After the week he’d had dealing with overzealous customers and a frankly bizarre request for a custom job to repaint a 1926 Bently…he needed a distraction.

That conversation, in case you’re wondering, went something like this:

Kenny (AKA, Crowley’s boss, otherwise known as Satan himself): I know this isn’t what you’re used to, but—  
Crowley: I work on motorcycles, Kenny. Not cars— let alone a classic that I could fuck up very easily.  
Kenny: Except you won’t fuck it up. This client is a very high-profile individual, and they asked for you personally. Now I don’t need to tell you that we need every penny we can get this time of year. Besides, I thought you’d be pleased about the commission.  
Crowley: You only get the commission if you can do it correctly.  
Kenny: Let me spell it out for you then Crowley: you can do this job, or you can take a hike.

Crowley, who hates long walks like poison, would much prefer to pass on the hike.

So he agreed. 

And now, he was panicking.

His solution? A trip to the library.

He was four cups of coffee in, slipping along the sidewalk in the snow a block away from the library, and he couldn’t go back and face his apartment because there was a lion living in it. He had half a mind to call animal control.

“Fucking idiot,” he chastised himself, slumping down on a bench outside of the flower shop. Would Aziraphale like flowers? Probably. Bit early though— he didn’t want to scare him off.

“Though I probably will with my shit personality.” He said aloud, not entirely meaning to.

Next to him, a small child was being dragged by its mother. They smiled at him (or more specifically, the sound of profanity). Crowley sneered as menacingly as he could, but that only made the child smile more.

_Little bugger._

That’s when his phone chimed.

**Wednesday, 11:32am**

_Aziraphale:_ Just thought you should know, I found a rather beautiful copy of Rilke just now whilst I was reshelving. In case you were interested in learning where your lovely quote came from.

He couldn’t help but smile as he typed out a reply.

 _Crowley:_ Did you just use “whilst” in a text message?  
_Aziraphale:_ The speed and convenience of texting is hardly an excuse for bad grammar or impropriety.

_……typing_

_Aziraphale:_ I just know that whatever you are typing, it was prompted by my use of ‘impropriety.’

_Bastard._

_Crowley:_ I assume that means you’re not much of a sex-ter?  
_Aziraphale:_ ….I’m sexting right now, did you not hear me mention Rilke? 

_Absolute_ bastard. 

He returned his phone to his pocket reluctantly. He really ought to pay more attention. He had nearly died (by his measure) three times on his walk down from Dis-topia Records. At -5, the temperature had frozen the rains from the day before, making the earth a difficult thing to grab onto. 

The perfect day for a bit of [not] reading.

The Tadfield Library waited for him around the corner. He’d passed by many times on his walks home from the shops, but today it looked different. Under a blanket of fresh snow, the place had a muted charm all its own. The looming austerity so often associated with libraries and archives was replaced with a timid calm. Its twin beige columns and high windows burgeoned with warmth— an architectural invitation. The fresh snow fogged the windows, blurring the stacks inside as it fell upon the lawn, collecting on the stairs. 

Inside, tightly-bundled guests shuffled around the stacks, loitering about with paperbacks in hand. Others occupied a handful of sling-back chairs and sofas that were scattered about the place. 

At the back of a row, Crowley’s eyes landed on a cream-coloured jumper and a pair of hands reaching for a tome on the high shelf. 

He swallowed. In the shower that morning, he’d theorized exactly 12 different entrances for himself, but they were all predicated on Aziraphale being at the front desk to greet him. 

Aziraphale, tragically, had not read his script. 

“Ahem.” 

Crowley turned to find a sharp-faced girl in an emerald dress eying him from the Check-Out desk. 

“Anathema,” he coughed, nodding. “Nice to see you.” 

“You too, Crowley.” Her smile was wearing thin, and the obvious disappointment in her tone reminded Crowley of a school teacher he’d once had— or several. 

“I figured you’d be wandering in here, sooner or later.” 

“Hmm?” 

“Aziraphale told me you two have been…spending time together.” 

Crowley thought his brain might make a break for it, the way it was screaming at him. _He told his friend about me?_

_That has to mean something, right?_

“Uh, yes. Once.” He cleared his throat. “Twice, in a minute.” 

“Right.” She pursed her lips, unimpressed. She had the horoscope page of the newspaper opened in front of her which she neatly folded and placed under her arm. 

Crowley could only imagine what his horoscope had read: ‘You will face challenges today. A librarian may try to kill you. Dress warmly.’ 

She added a book to a nearby pile without so much as reading the cover. “Listen, I don’t know how much he’s told you, but Aziraphale’s been through a lot lately.” 

“I have heard about that, yes.” 

“And I know that we haven’t known each other for very long and that you’re more Hastur’s friend than mine, but that being said, you need to know something.” 

Her long nails and silver rings clanged against the tabletop as she placed her hands there and Crowley pictured the talons of a vulture clicking against a tree branch. _How is it possible for someone to be so delicate and terrifying in the same moment?_

“Alright.” 

“Just know that Aziraphale is a sweet, lovely person who deserves to be treated as such.” 

“I do know that much.” 

“Good. And know that I am Aziraphale’s friend and that makes me responsible for him. So if you put a foot wrong where Aziraphale is concerned, I will find you, Liam-Nieson-Taken-style, and I will cut your tiny ginger balls off. Understood?” 

Tragic really, that she was a librarian instead of a mob boss. Or an interrogator. There was a certain charm to her threats that kept the other patrons quiet as she skinned Crowley alive with words. 

Even as she threatened him, Crowley decided that liked her. “Uh-ye—Understood.” 

“Good.” She reached across the counter to pat him appreciatively on the arm; Crowley half expected her to give him a gold sticker. “Good talk.” 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale placed a stack of books on a nearby cart, looking anxiously from Anathema to Crowley as he did so. “Is everything ok?” 

“Course! Why wouldn’t it be An—Aziraphale?” 

“Alright…” (Crowley couldn’t tell what sort of look he was giving Anathema, but it was undoubtedly a _look.)_ “It is lovely to see you.” 

‘Lovely’ didn’t begin to cover it. Azirphale looked downright _miraculous._ His button down sat slightly askew on his neck, his cardigan clinging to his sides with its intricately-stitched pattern. The slight swell of his stomach filled it out nicely— it made Crowley want to put his hands in Aziraphale’s pockets, giving him a squeeze. 

_Seriously?_ he thought to himself, _This is what you’re doing? Lusting after a cardigan-wearing librarian on a weekday afternoon?_

Crowley was fairly certain he hadn’t been inside a library in years— what else had he been missing? 

Also, it must be said: A librarian has no right to look that sexy stocking shelves. 

“Uh, thanks. Yeah, you too." 

“I’m just going to go do things…over there.” Anathema retreated to the backroom with her horoscopes in hand. 

“So,” Aziraphale said, smiling, “have you come to see Rilke, or to get a library card?” 

“Hmm, to see you, mostly. But I’m up for anything.” 

“That’s very sweet.” 

Anathema’s [barely] muffled groan from the back room caused several readers to look up from their literature. 

“Yeah, so…are you the one to talk to about getting a card to this place, or do I need to go to someone more senior?” 

Aziraphale wrinkled his nose as he started up the computer. “I am quite capable, thank you very much.” 

Annoyance looked good on him. In spite of his expression, his amusement at Crowley’s comment seemed to colour everything else. The librarian looked back at him with a fondness that dared Crowley to keep going. 

He would need to come up with something clever to see that look again. 

Aziraphale jiggled the mouse and began typing away. “So— sunglasses.” 

“Yes.” 

"Inside the library.” 

“Well I had to distinguish myself from the nerdy book-types somehow, didn’t I?” 

“They’re fogging up in here. Can you even see through them?” 

“Enough.” 

He hummed. “You are an odd one, my dear.” 

“Makes me more memorable though doesn’t it?” 

“I suppose so.” He conceded, wrinkling his nose again. “So I just need a few things from you.” 

“Ask away.” 

“Name?” 

“If you’re saying you’ve forgotten it—” 

“Well, I don’t actually know your full name, as it happens.” 

“Well we haven’t had that second date yet.” 

Even in the bluish glow of the computer screen, his blush was evident. “Tell you what— hand over your driver’s license, and we can call this our second. Alright?" 

“Driver’s license?” He asked, handing it over. “You move fast.” 

“Indeed.” He turned it over eagerly, scanning it. “Pleased to meet you, Anthony _James_ Crowley.” 

“Alright, you’ve had your fun. No need announcing it to everyone.” 

“James is a fine name! Nothing to be ashamed of.” 

“Yeah, yeah…” 

Behind the desk, a printer roared to life. Aziraphale went to fetch the card, handing it to Crowley with a flourish. “Voila.” 

“It’s done?” 

“Well, the card part is done. The background check will take another week.” 

Crowley’s eyes blew wide. “The—what?” 

His heart stopped mid-beat. There must be a way to stop this— to brush it off and cancel the application before it went through. _‘Actually Aziraphale, I changed my mind. I don’t need a card, I’ll just read whatever you’re reading.’_

_There’s really no need to go digging up the past. Not today._

“I’m kidding, Crowley. You can relax.” 

There was that hand again, placed on Crowley’s forearm in reassurance.“Oh. Ok.” 

“Is everything quite alright?” 

“Sure. Jus’ thought it would take longer than this to get one of these.” He paused to wipe his glasses on his scarf. “You wouldn’t happen to have a lunch break coming up any time soon, would you?” 

“Don’t you have work today?” 

“My day off. Thought I’d try to bother you, for at least part of it.” 

“Hmm, well I don’t know, let me just ask—” 

“He can go!” Anathema shouted, catching the attention of several annoyed patrons. “Just be back in an hour.” 

“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale replied. “Just let me grab my coat and I’ll be right with you, Crowley.” 

“Sure thing. I’ll meet you outside.” 

Crowley attempted a friendly wave to Anathema as Aziraphale scampered off. She returned the gesture with a smile as she dragged her index finger across her throat. 

Oh, Crowley _really_ liked her. 

In the ten paces between the front desk and the door, Crowley’s brain was beginning to short circuit. Three problems were circling him, in no particular order: 1) His grand entrance had failed, and now he had one hour to entertain Aziraphale and (hopefully) not bore him to death, thereby ruining any chance he might have for another date. 2) He had missed Aziraphale’s joke about a background check and now he was concerned that Aziraphale thought he was insane. 3) Aziraphale had called Anathema ‘dear’ just now, meaning that ‘dear’ was a term which he likely used for everyone, meaning that Crowley was no one special. 

Also, he may need to adjust his anxiety meds… 

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” 

He turned to find Aziraphale bundled up in a long caramel-coloured coat and a soft chenille scarf. At least, it looked soft. His hat was pulled tight around his ears but wisps of blonde curl still managed to poke out around the sides. It made his eyes appear even more blue, with a softness to him that made Crowley want to do something stupid, like kiss him. 

“N—not at all, Angel.” He stammered. “You look…nice.” 

“I do?” 

“Yes, of course. No sense you going on about it.” 

“Well, thank you, my dear. I think you look lovely as well.” 

What the hell was Crowley supposed to say to _that?_

“So,” Aziraphale said, “what would you like to do?” 

“Honestly? I didn’t think I’d get this far.” 

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. ’s true. Kind of thought you’d be busy with Rilke or something.” 

“Rilke has been dead for nearly 100 years, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind waiting for me.” He took Crowley’s arm in his as they stepped outside. “There’s a nice soup shop on the corner; why don’t we go there? 

“Whatever you want, Angel.” 

Although the bistro was only a short walk from the library, the snow made things difficult. It amplified what little traffic Tadfield had, and Crowley found himself slipping on the ice with every other step. 

“Do your boots not have treads?” Aziraphale asked as he supported Crowley’s weight with his arm for the fourth time. 

“Yeah, but it’s still icy. ‘Don’t understand how you haven’t fallen yet.” 

Aziraphale shrugged. “I just don’t think about it, I suppose.” 

“How can you think about anything else?!” 

“Just hold onto me, dear. We’re almost there.” 

Aziraphale’s conspiratorial smile was enough to stop Crowley in his tracks. _How did he do that?_ With one look his face seemed to glow. His cheeks were red and his shallow breathes moved in dragon smoke. A single snowflake was caught in his brow that had Crowley fighting the urge to reach up and remove it himself. This was an image he would remember— Aziraphale smiling in the snow, his pretty hand on Crowley’s thin and frozen arm. He would repaint it with his memory on nights when he couldn’t sleep and needed a reminder of his own good fortune. 

Every scrap of affection Aziraphale showed him was a gift. A trinket for the high shelf in his mind occupied by memories and fiction. When Aziraphale smiled at him—no, _because_ of him, he felt a little less alone. 

_Alright, enough of that. You haven’t even kissed him yet._

The bistro was small and crowded as guests rushed in and out of the shop on lunch breaks. Thankfully, there was a small seat open by the window. Aziraphale reserved it while Crowley placed their orders: a bowl of French onion soup for Aziraphale, and vegetable soup for Crowley. 

When he returned, Aziraphale took his bowl eagerly, smelling its contents eagerly before reaching for a spoon. “This looks—” 

“Do not say _scrumptious.”_

“I was going to say _delightful,_ thank you very much.” He raised the spoon to his lips, loosing a slight moan as they closed around it. “This is very good.” 

Mhm. 

Crowley thinks he’d said it aloud, but it’s entirely possible that the acknowledgement was still in his own mind, clanging around. 

_So,_ he thought. _Aziraphale has a thing for food._

The sounds he made between spoonfuls were enough to drive Crowley mad. As though pleasure came so easily to him that a simple morsel of food in a mediocre street shop was enough to delight him. And the noise was downright debauched. 

_He must be very vocal, perhaps in other areas as well…_

“Crowley?” 

“Hmm?” 

“You haven’t touched your soup. Are you feeling alright?” 

“Fine, Angel.”

He turned to his soup, forcing himself to take a bite. It burned his tongue, which was probably for the best. 

“So, how are you enjoying your day off?” 

“It's fine. Good, now. I've been really busy lately. I have a custom order for a customer that I have to finish later this week, but other than that there’s not much on.” 

“Oh? What sort of an order?” 

"This customer has a 1926 Bentley— _beautiful_ car— I mean gorgeous. Original frame, refurbished interior, the whole thing. Anyway, they want flames emblazoned on the side of it. I’ve done that plenty of times with motorcycles down at the shop, but I’ve never worked on a car before. But I guess the owner knows my boss so…he requested me personally. I guess he’s seen my work elsewhere.” 

“I never realized that you were an artist! I thought you worked more on the mechanical side of things.” 

“Well, I do…technically. I’ve just been getting into the creative side of it these past few years.” 

“Can I see your work?” 

“Yeah. I mean, if you want to?” 

“Of course.” 

He handed Aziraphale his phone. He watched as he swiped through a series of photos, pausing now and again to zoom in, turning his head thoughtfully as he studied them. 

“Crowley, these are lovely!” 

That was a first-- and he'd said it with a picture of a flaming skull and cross bones in front of him.

“I don’t know that anyone has ever called my work _lovely,_ but thanks.” 

“You’re so talented. I can’t imagine how you do these.” 

“’s not so hard. I find it calming. Usually.” 

“But not at the moment?” 

“Not really.” He sighed, thinking about the Bentley and the all the pressures that came with it. “‘m worried I’m gonna screw it up, really. I’ve never worked on anything this big before. I’m not really sure why they chose me.” 

“You said the client had seen your work before, yes?” 

“That’s right.” 

“Well then you know why they chose you for this task. They clearly admire your work and trust that you’ll get it right.” 

“Yeah, but what if I don’t? I just paint because I enjoy it. What if this time, it doesn’t work out?” 

“Statistically unlikely, given all of the beautiful photographs you’ve just shown me. Besides, whether you get commissions or not, you’re still an artist. No amount of failure can change what you are.” 

“I guess.” 

“Yes, well, I _know.”_ Aziraphale smiled, handing back the phone. “Thank you for showing me these; you must let me come by sometime. I’d love to see your work in person.” 

“Yeah, well…today I’m harassing you at the library. It’s only fair that next time, you come and bother me in the shop.” 

“I shall do my best.” He pushed his empty bowl aside, reaching for his bag. “That reminds me— I have something for you.” 

“Oh?” 

In his excitement, Aziraphale’s foot collided with Crowley’s leg, kicking him in the shin. 

“Oh! I’m sorry.” 

But Crowley was quicker. Instinctively, he captured Aziraphale’s foot between his own, holding him there. He watched Aziraphale blush until he thrust a book into his hands. 

“Rilke.” Crowley observed, astutely. 

“Yes, I thought you might be interested in reading him. No pressure, though. I mean, you don’t have to…” 

“I will.” He turned the yellow cover over in his hands. Inside he found hastily scribbled marginalia in black pen. “Is it your copy?” 

“No, I took it out of the library.” 

“Oh.” Shame. 

His face fell. “You don’t like it?” 

“I love it,” he promised, tapping Aziraphale’s foot with his own. “Just wish I’d thought to bring you something.” 

“You count as a gift, my dear.” He checked his watch with a sigh. “I really should get back to the library, I’m afraid. If I leave Anathema on her own for too long I’ll never hear the end of it.” 

“Right, let’s go.” 

Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Thank you for lunch, Crowley.” 

Every thought (apart from one) fell from his mind like a sieve. 

“My pleasure.” He replied. 

“Thanks for coming out with me today,” Crowley said as they arrived at the steps of the library. “I needed this. It’s been a…stressful week.” 

“Because of your project?" 

“Yeah. Other things too.” He caught sight of the lions on either side of the doors and wondered if he would find one tonight, when he finally went home. “I feel better though, seeing you.” 

The look on Aziraphale’s face could melt glaciers. He smiled, his eyes flitting from Crowley’s face to his hand, still holding tightly onto Crowley’s arm. 

The windows of the library loomed tall and open, like eyes, watching them from above. 

“ You will do wonderfully, I'm sure. And if you need reassurance, you can always call me." He released Crowley's arm. "And be careful; I wouldn’t want you to slip on your way home.” 

“Actually, I think I’ll take the bus somewhere. ‘Have to see a friend.” 

He nodded. “Enjoy yourself, then.” 

“Always do.” 

Aziraphale hesitated, his hand on the arm rail. Something in his expression told Crowley that he didn’t want to leave. 

“Say, Crowley…since I now know that you’re interested in art, I’m wondering if you might want to accompany me to the gallery on Sunday? I heard that there’s a rather nice impressionism exhibit on this weekend and I was thinking about going. Does that sound like something you’d—" 

“—Yup. Sure. Yes, brilliant.” 

A tender smile crept onto Aziraphale’s face. “So…I’ll meet you there, then?” 

“Sure thing. That is…yes.” He nodded, spun on his right heel, and made for the bus stop. 

He turned back around after just three steps. “I forgot to say goodbye, didn’t I?” 

“You did.” 

“Ah. Goodbye then, Angel.” 

“Goodbye, Crowley.” Aziraphale took a step forward, leaning up to place a gentle kiss on Crowley’s cheek. “Until next time.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and thank you everyone for your kind comments! They've really helped motivate me to keep writing!
> 
> Also, I may or may not have purchased 3 kit pullovers yesterday because they reminded me of Aziraphale. 0.o But I'm fine. Totally normal behaviour, nothing to see here.


	4. Impressionism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes with a song: "It's About Time," by Barcelona.  
> Listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm9QjRYrTHo

At 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon the Paradiso becomes something of a sanctuary. (Crowley hesitates to call it that— what kind of sanctuary has a cracked window and a 3-legged pool table?) Still, he prefers it in the daylight. In the afternoons, the sunlight compensates for the poor fluorescents and it’s still too early for the regulars to stumble in through the doors. The only customers at this hour are more like furniture— permanent fixtures of the place that sit, drink, and wait for closing time. It’s the kind of place where you can speak without fear of eavesdropping. He knew that in the morning, no one would remember his presence here.

He slithered into his usual place at the third barstool, waiting to be noticed. He placed Rilke next to him on the hardwood for companionship.

Bee emerged moments later with a towel in hand, looking more like a caricature of a bartender than a living, breathing person. The only difference was, bartenders on television tend to smile. They also tend to be tall enough to reach the glasses without a step stool, but the last person to mention that regretted it deeply.

“What’s wrong?” They sighed, coming to loom in front of Crowley. (Interesting, how a person of such short stature could still loom over a person on a barstool. Crowley suspected it had something to do with their eyebrows—far too animated for their own good.)

“You’re always asking me that.” 

When Bee gave no indication of a reaction, Crowley continued. “Nothin’s wrong.”

“Piss off, you’re a terrible liar.”

“How do you know there’s a problem?”

“You’re in my bar while it’s still daylight, looking like shit and carrying a…what’s that?” They frowned as they turned the yellow binding towards them. “Rilke?”

“Poetry.”

“Fuck, is this guy giving you homework, now?”

“It was nice of him,” Crowley said, hand tapping impatiently on the cover. “I want to read it.”

Bee’s cheeky grin was enough to curdle milk. “He’s got you wrapped around his little finger, don’t he?”

“Shut up.”

“And you’re here because you’re afraid it’s happenin’ again.”

There was no malice or ill intent to their words, though there could have been. It happened the same way every time: Crowley would find someone (or, more specifically, someone would find Crowley) and it would be bliss for a week or two, until they lost interest. They’d realize that he didn’t have any money or a career worth mentioning and the appeal of him would wear off, giving way to grim reality. 

Reality being that Crowley wasn’t the sort of person to be in a relationship with— he envisioned the packed bags in his mind well before they turned up in his life.

“I like him, Bee.” He muttered, wishing he had a drink in his hands instead of Rilke. “I think he’s a good one.”

“That’s what you said about the last one.”

“I know.”

Chaz had been great, in the beginning. He seemed keen and nice enough and he tolerated Crowley’s odd habits without too much of a fuss. Then he drifted. He began glancing at his phone in between meals and words and minutes, until his job consumed him. He was a passionate man (who could blame him for that?) his passion simply wasn’t Crowley.

And Crowley wasn’t blameless, either. He had noticed Chaz’s absence long before he’d said anything about it; he’d just gotten used to swallowing those feelings. Driving past the red flags until the warning signs were only blurry streaks of crimson. He’d sleepwalked through that relationship until he was awakened by the sound of a slamming door. But Aziraphale…

Suffice it to say that Crowley did not want to sleepwalk through Aziraphale’s life. He wanted to feel the minutes as he lived them, and that notion terrified him.

“I know that I shouldn’t…that it wouldn’t work between us. He’s really smart and quick and—”

Bee stuck out their chin defiantly. “You’re smart too.”

“Not like he is. He can quote medieval poets on a _dime.”_

There were those eyebrows again. “And you still want to date him?”

Crowley blinked. “Well, yeah.”

“Huh. I’m pretty sure I used to take lunch money from guys like that.”

“You’re not helping. You’re a bartender— aren’t you supposed to…” he gestured impotently towards the mountain of alcohol behind the counter. “…be comforting? Reassuring?”

“It’s not that kind of pub.” They poured a glass of whiskey without being told, pushing it towards Crowley before pouring one for themself. “I think you’re overthinking it.”

Crowley downed the glass and slid it back. “No shit.”

“Listen, I know that I’ve told you this a thousand times, but not everyone is going to leave you, you cunt.”

Crowley would have choked on his whiskey, if surprise were still possible for him where Bee was concerned.

“Also, you said that you want to try with him, yeah? It seems like _trying_ is all a relationship is, when you get down to it.”

“Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

“…He’s been through some stuff, Bee. I mean…his ex…” he shook his head, the story coming to a stop in his throat. 

“Yeah?”

“It was _bad.”_ He said simply; it wasn’t his story to tell. “Like, really bad.”

“So? You’re not like that.”

“Yeah but he’s just so _decent_ and kind.”

“And you’re not? Fuck right off with all that.”

“Come on, you know my story.” He inspected his drink as though he thought it might be poison. “The minute he finds out where I come from, it’s all over for me. Besides, you know how I can be.”

Bee nodded sagely. “A prick.”

Sometimes Crowley really wanted to hate them— this was not one of those times.

“Yes, that. I’m afraid that I’ll say the wrong thing and he’ll think the worst of me.”

“Then you should tell him, Crowley. Fill him in on everything before it gets too serious.”

“I can’t.”

What he means is this: Aziraphale works in a library and reads Rilke and Oliver for fun. He lives for words and their meanings while I’m over here painting pictures and searching for a way to never speak again. 

Words haunt once they’re outside of you. Speak them once and they float around the atmosphere forever, telling the whole world exactly what happened to you and who you are. 

Sometimes, in the in-between-moments when he’s not saying anything at all, Azirphale looks at him like he might just be magic. How could he sacrifice those looks of quiet pride?

How could _anyone?_

“Crowley— look, you haven’t told anyone your story apart from me. But don’t you want to? And if he’s as keen as all this… ” They nudged the book. “Keen enough to give you bloody _Rilke,_ then maybe he’d actually care to know you.”

“No.” Crowley shook his head, whiskey clutched to his chest. “He wouldn’t get it and it’d just ruin everything.”

They sighed, slumping down on the bar across from him. “Then I really don’t know what you want me to say here.”

_That I’m worth loving. That I’m worth the swearing and the prickly attitude and all the other charges against my pathetic little soul. Tell me it’s not too late for these scarred hands to hold something real._

Crowley shook his head. “I don’t know either.”

“I do know what you’ll do, though.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ll try anyway. It’s what you do. You’re like Eve and the bloody apple, always reaching for something shiny and new.”

Crowley scoffed. “And look how well it turned out for her.”

“I don’t know. She got out, didn’t she?”

On the counter, Crowley’s phone began to buzz.

 **Aziraphale:** Thank you again for today. 

“That’s him, isn’t it?”

Crowley grinned as Aziraphale’s reply came in:

 **Aziraphale:** Please do consult Rilke so that we can begin “sexting” (I refuse to use that term freely) as soon as possible.

“Go out with him, you fucking newel post. Your stupid smile is bringing up the mood of my very depressing bar.”

“Thanks, Bee.” He told them, as sincerely as he could. 

He grabbed Rilke, making for the door.

“Yeah, yeah. Hey, are you ever going to pay your tab?”

“Excellent question!” He called in response, letting the door fall shut behind him.

**Friday, 6:49pm**

**Crowley:** “Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.”  
**Crowley:** That one is you, everyday.

 **Aziraphale:** That’s me right now, as it happens.

 **Crowley:** You’re reading with someone else? Cheat.

 **Aziraphale:** …I’m reading with you?

 **Crowley:** Oh. That’s fine, then.

 **Aziraphale:** I’m dying to know what you think of Rilke. Have you read much of it?

All of it. (Twice)

He considered admitting as much, but then he might seem desperate to please. (Which he undoubtedly was, but Aziraphale didn’t need to know that.)

 **Crowley:** Most of it.

 **Aziraphale:** AND?

 **Crowley:** I like him.

 **Aziraphale:** You know you’re going to have to give me more than that, my dear. What was your favourite part?

He didn’t need to think about it. He’d considered underlining it with a pencil, but it didn’t seem right. (Not only because of Aziraphale’s meticulous nature, but because then there would be physical proof that he’d read it and seen something between the words.)

He flipped to page 175 and read: I am circling around God, around the ancient tower and I have been circling for a thousand years and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.

When he’d first encountered it, it felt like a blow. He’d read it on his lunch break and when he went back to retrieve his paint and gloves it had felt like a betrayal. That line isn’t the sort of thing you walk away from. You have to sit with it awhile as it does its psychic work on you. But life seldom makes room for metaphors.

 **Crowley:** I guess I like the sharpness of Rilke. Mary Oliver talks about nature like it’s just and reliable, but Rilke is less grounded and more psychological. I can believe that he’s suffered without having to Google him.  
**Crowley:** if that makes sense at all.

 **Aziraphale:** Not only does it make sense, but I don’t believe I could agree with you more.

 _Oh thank God._

Crowley made himself get up and set to the task of preparing dinner if for no other reason than to give his hands something to do while his brain ran laps around him. Perhaps it was good that they were talking about Rilke now rather than later, when Crowley would have to come up with literary analysis on the fly without having a screen to hide behind.

Ten minutes later, his phone chimed again.

 **Aziraphale:** I look forward to seeing you on Sunday.

_You have no idea._

Crowley put a pot on the stove, watching for bubbles in the water long before it was hot enough to boil.

 **Crowley:** You too.

When Sunday arrived at last, Crowley was ready for it. His lion had returned safely to the Sahara with minimal damage to his apartment and he rose earlier than he’d intended and set to cleaning the place. 

Once that was finished, he began fixing himself. He showered and dressed, spending way too long staring into the shadowy abyss of his closet. 

It had been years since he’d stepped foot in an art gallery— possibly since his 8th grade school trip. _Do people still dress up for galleries?_ Aziraphale likely would, seeing as he’d worn a tweed blazer to a house party. 

He smiled at the memory of a sodden jacket and shower-damp hair as Aziraphale padded across his kitchen floor.

And moments before, a hand on his back, holding him as the motorcycle rounded the corner…

_Enough of that._

“Don’t fuck this up,” he warned his reflection in the glass. “Not today."

In the end, he played it safe with black dress pants and a burgundy button down shirt. He felt a bit goth for the sterilized white walls of his imaginary gallery, but there was little to be done. The majority of his clothing was dark and it was far too late to fret about that now. (Although it didn’t stop him from trying.)

Due to a near complete misunderstanding as to how time works, Crowley arrived at the gallery 45 minutes early. He parked his motorcycle across the street and began wandering around the building as the staff bustled about inside, preparing to open the doors. He stopped only as he came to an advertisement for the impressionist exhibit. In front of a backdrop of blue and green landscapes stood an asian man clad all in black with a floppy tangle of hair and a wry smile. He looked every bit the thoughtful artist, lacking only the crooked beret and a paintbrush in his hand.

“Andrew Wong,” a voice behind him said.

Aziraphale came to stand next to Crowley, their shoulders brushing as he did so. “Apparently, he’s the new favourite in impressionist circles.”

“So this is how you say hello, now? Just appearing out of thin air with fun facts?”

Aziraphale smiled, his shoulders doing a little wiggle that, if he were not standing so close, Crowley would have mercilessly taunted him for. “Hello dear.”

 _It’s downright unfair,_ thought Crowley, that Aziraphale somehow had the ability to make a tan blazer and a waistcoat look sexy. It was much more formal and angular than the chunky cardigan he wore to the library, but the effect was nearly the same. He looked as soft and inviting as ever. And the way his form-fitting pants hugged the curves of his thighs made Crowley want to thank him with his hands.

He cleared his throat. “Uh, yy— I didn’t know if we were supposed to…” he nodded vaguely in the direction of Aziraphale’s tidy ensemble. 

“Oh no, not at all. I’m just formal, that’s all. Probably overdressed if anything, but I do enjoy a bit of formality when it comes to museum trips.” He spotted Crowley’s smile before he’d intended him to. “You think it’s silly.”

“’S not silly;” he shrugged, “it’s you.”

The librarian looked away; conflicted, somehow. He kept opening and closing his mouth as if his words were weighted.

“You look cute when you’re flustered.” Crowley said.

He regretted it as soon as it left his lips.

“I’m _not_ flustered.” (The way he bit his lip said otherwise)

“Oh no,” Crowley sniffed, swaying back on his heels. “‘Course not.” 

Across the street, a movie was getting out. Parents and children mulled about, oscillating on the pavement with snacks and cell phones in hand. 

Aziraphale stared straight passed them, the moment between them broken by street noise. “Say, the museum isn’t open for another half hour yet— what would you say to some coffee? My treat.”

“Lead the way.”

The coffee shop was only minutes away, but it gave Aziraphale plenty of time to fill Crowley in on the events of the past week. 

Crowley found that he liked listening to Aziraphale talk. Even if the subject was something as banal as the library’s transference to a new software system (which Aziraphale resented on a purely sentimental basis— why update something that works perfectly well?), he enjoyed how animated Aziraphale became. It also afforded him the opportunity to admire his pretty lips, the cupid’s bow of them that rose and fell with every word.

Perhaps he should get back into sketching…

“Oh! I nearly forgot to ask— how is the Bentley? Are you finished with it yet?”

Crowley handed him his phone, balancing his coffee in the other as they walked. “Finished it last night.”

“And you did all this yourself?” Aziraphale asked, enlarging the photograph with his thumb.

It was a bit overwhelming, the way Aziraphale studied every detail. Crowley wasn’t used to showing his artwork to anyone apart from his coworkers. His absent-minded doodling had gotten him in enough trouble in his youth to prevent him from ever showing it around so freely. But the way Aziraphale’s eyes widened with pride to see it…that was something else.

“Uh, yeah. By myself.”

“It’s quite a cunning design, my dear. When you said that you were painting flames, I didn’t expect to see so much purple. It’s an unexpected choice.”

“Yeah, well, the client wanted realism. Besides, fire isn’t all red and orange like in cartoons. Every other colour sort of melts into it.”

Aziraphale hummed, turning it over in his mind. “I see.”

“Now,” Crowley said, tossing his cup in the trash and opening the door to the gallery, “let’s see about that artist of yours.”

“He’s hardly _my_ artist.” Aziraphale told him as he crossed the threshold. “Impressionism isn’t exactly a preference of mine.”

“So what is your favourite kind of art, then?”

He frowned, thinking. “Anything Renaissance or Neo Classical, I suppose? I also quite like Rodin.”

“So, you’re a sculpture man.”

“I suppose you could say that.” He smiled politely at the attendant, purchasing two admissions and a map of the gallery.

It wasn’t until they entered the elevator that Aziraphale spoke again, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Crowley as he spoke to the doors in front of him. “I suppose I enjoy heavier styles.”

“Heavier?”

He nodded. “I like it when the figures look real. Like you can see them and the space they take up at the same time. I always feel like they’re about to extend a hand, isn’t that silly?”

Crowley shook his head, wanting badly to extend a hand of his own. To kiss the analysis off his tongue like chocolate, indulging in another kind of sweet and heavy thing.

“And what sort of art do you prefer?”

“Yy—er, yeah I like impressionism, I suppose.”

“Really? I hope you’re not just saying that for my sake, seeing as I’m the one who suggested we come here.”

“No, really. I— ”

Just then, the elevator doors opened, giving way to a sea of water-colours, benches, and eager visitors.

“Wow.”

Beside him, Aziraphale beamed, watching his face as he took it all in. “You like it, then?”

Crowley nodded, allowing Aziraphale to lead him towards the first row of paintings.

In short, the exhibition was nothing short of incredible.

Walls of faded blue held paintings like breaks in the waves. It reminded him of Monet and waterlilies and the kind of beauty that can only be glimpsed from afar.

Crowley had always had a soft spot for impressionism. Not that he knew much of the history, mind you— he’d just seen pictures and remembered them, filing them away for later. 

He’d seen so many beautiful things without knowing how they came to be.

But impressionism, that was special. A coalescence of colours and elements that faded away under scrutiny. It reminded him of people, in a way. You never know where you stand with anyone until you look really closely at the space between and the points of intersection. You can imagine a whole world in the haze of a painting where every element is presented only as a light suggestion. There, the flowers on the wall beg for a closer inspection. 

He glanced at Aziraphale, ringing the museum map in his hands as he gestured excitedly to an oceanic water-colour. He imagined that he could read between the lines of him, too. He could see his widened eyes and imagine that they were for him. That the excitement on his tongue was caused by Crowley and not the countless masterpieces surrounding them. 

“What do you think of this one?” Aziraphale would ask, his lips forming a delicate “o” as his eyes scanned the image.

He had the softest eyes, Aziraphale. All crinkly and bright. Crowley studied them while Aziraphale studied the painting, seemingly unaware of their proximity as they huddled together in the ebbing crowd. The blue walls of the gallery acted like a canvas, bringing to the surface all the shades of ocean that Crowley had failed to notice up until this moment.

“Yeah, nice.”

Aziraphale smirked, refusing to look at him. “You may want to try _actually_ looking at the painting, dear.”

“Right.” 

So, perhaps Aziraphale didn’t mind being ogled.  
He would have to remember that.

At a certain point as they moved through the gallery, Crowley forgot to worry. He focused on the man beside him until life became nothing more than the liminal space between images and the hand that reached for his through the crowd. Minutes passed as they drifted from image to image, Crowley at last surrendering himself to the surreal blueness and the suede shoes in front of him.

Following Aziraphale was a bit like learning a language. Every time Aziraphale tapped his arm or nudged him in the hall he thought he understood a little bit more. Every action was a signal designed just for him. They were not looking at floral paintings so much as they were in a garden.

Aziraphale tugged at his arm, pulling him towards a sketch in the corner. Crowley smiled back at him, allowing himself to be led.

_Did that mean something?_  
_Don’t look too closely; you might see the distance between the points— between us._

“See those two paintings?” Aziraphale prompted, squeezing his arm. “They’re actually of the same beach, two years apart.”

“You’re kidding.”

On the left, a red sky shone over a double-row of fishing vessels, igniting them with fury. On the right, a wall of sand extended beyond the hollowed-out hulls, the sun sinking beneath the horizon in a calm and endless sky.

“Not at all. Apparently, Wong had planned to repaint the original scene a year later, but was foiled by a hurricane. The following year, the same thing happened. He waited for the storm to pass before setting out, fearing that the sky would look the same as it had years ago, but it didn’t. The aftermath wasn’t nearly as furious as the sky had been on a typical Tuesday evening just two years before. That’s how they can look so different but still be the same place.”

He looked up at Crowley expectantly. “What do you think?”

“I think that you know a lot more about impressionism than you’ve let on.” 

He leaned closer, his voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper. “You want to know my secret?”

“What?”

“I read the placard earlier, when we’d first arrived.

“Bastard.” 

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said as their laughter subsided. “I’ve just been prattling on. You probably know so much of this already.”

Crowley shrugged. “I don’t, really. I never went to art school or anything, I just paint.”

“Oh.” He looked away, a slight blush warming his cheeks.

“Besides, I like your prattling.”

Aziraphale wrinkled his nose and drifted further into the exhibit. 

The hand on Crowley’s arm never wavered.

“Come here,” Aziraphale said suddenly, pointing to a gap between one blue room and the next. “I want to show you my favourite piece in the museum.”

Crowley followed him off of the beaten path and into a narrow room where a broad assortment of statuary was spaced evenly against a crimson backdrop. 

The faces and poses Crowley recognized, though he knew nothing of their identities. Their marbled perfection gazed back at him, unfeeling and without judgement.

“This one,” Aziraphale said, pointing to a marble bust on a white platform. The card beneath it read: Emperor Augustus, c. 10 C.E.

“Augustus?”

“That’s the one.” 

The statue, with its pupil-less eyes stared blankly into the room, his nose almost completely chipped off by the erosion of time. He looked no more beautiful than the other statues, and occupied considerably less real estate in the hall. If not for the placard, Crowley would never have guessed that the marble man in front of him had been an emperor.

“Am I missing something, Angel? What’s so special about him?”

A smile ghosted Aziraphale’s lips at the pet name. “Well, historically speaking, a lot. But the sculpture itself has a lot to say as well.” He gestured towards the curve that remained of Augustus’ nose. “He’s been broken, but is still recognizable by the softness around his eyes.”

Next, he gestures to the brow, where two slight curls sit perched upon his forehead. “Those curls are the beginning of a long artistic trend in male statuary. Everyone else imitated his image which was youthful but intelligent at the same time.”

Crowley hummed, his sunglasses aimed at the statue but his eyes transfixed by Aziraphale and his clever mouth. “How do you know all this?”

“You pick things up, over time.” He sighed, his hand on Crowley’s arm swiping a thumb over the muscle there. “Now do hush up and let me finish what I have to tell you.”

“Alright,” Crowley promised, as seriously as he was able with that hand still touching him.

“Other than that, the fact that there is an Augustus in Tadfield has always impressed me. That the emperor is brought down to our level, living among us humbly while at any other museum he would warrant his own wing.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.” He cleared his throat, no doubt noticing Crowley’s proximity. 

He should really step aside, but he couldn’t. The heat of Aziraphale’s hand on his arm was too enticing and his grip too firm to break away from now. A peculiar trail of freckles dotted Aziraphale’s nose and from this angle, Crowley traced them with his eyes. He could connect them like dots, or points on a canvas. 

It delighted him to know that they were alone, here. Away from the crowds, he stood only with his librarian and the sightless marble eyes of time.

Crowley planted his heels, holding his breath as Aziraphale leaned still closer.

“You know,” Aziraphale continued, “you reminded me of him, the first time I saw you.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not at all. Your hair has a similar quality to it.” He reached a shaky hand to Crowley’s face, tugging gently at a loose strand of hair until it fell upon Crowley’s temple in a gentle swoop. “You have an imperial look about you, when you forget yourself.”

And that was it.

Crowley’s lips crashed into Aziraphale’s before he could think better of it. Before his thoughts could pull him back from Aziraphale and his pink-skinned softness. He kissed him like a man on a ship, about to sail away forever. Like Aziraphale was his lover and the ground beneath his feet all at once.

And Aziraphale did just the same.

The librarian made a surprised sound in the back of his throat as his lips parted for Crowley. His hands hung suspended in the air before finding purchase on Crowley’s shoulders. He pulled him close, so close that he dragged Crowley back with him, grounding him with thick fingers that pulled and squeezed and _wanted._

And Crowley followed. He stepped into Aziraphale’s space until there was only the press of bodies against the empty gallery wall. 

Impressionism had nothing to do with the way his body pressed into Aziraphale’s. He didn’t need to worry about the distance between points or reading through the lines. He could trace beneath his hands the points where their bodies came together. The arms that held him fast were joined to the chest that rose and fell beneath his hands. His breathy moans were tied to Crowley’s lips and his hands and the press of Aziraphale’s stomach against his own had him chasing more, more, more.

Crowley found that the softness of Aziraphale— not just the plush fabric of his clothes but the give and take of his body— was a form of sanctuary. The warmth of his skin beneath Crowley’s hands was almost as enticing as the heat of his lips which parted for him so easily. 

And the weight of Aziraphale’s tongue inside his mouth was a lifeline. It mingled with his own, each seeking to make a home inside of the other.

At some point his glasses had fallen from his hungry face, their noses making quick work of it.

 _“Crowley,”_ Aziraphale whispered, a breath of air dancing over Crowley’s lips. His lust-heavy eyes were beginning to open, just a little.

“Mhm?” Crowley breathed, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips before pulling away.

“We should stop,” Aziraphale says to his lips. “Please stop.”

“Right.” Crowley shrinks back, nearly stumbling. 

Aziraphale looks absolutely debauched. His lips are pink and swollen from kissing and his hair is mussed from where Crowley’s hands had raked through it only a moment ago.

The word _beautiful_ comes to mind, then falls away to nothing once Crowley sees his eyes. They search the room, wide and conflicted. 

He looks like a man who’s made a terrible mistake.

Around Crowley, guilt falls like snow. They were having a perfectly wonderful time, why did he have to ruin it? 

He closes his eyes, feeling like a teacup filled to the brim, overflowing with every moment.

That, he knew, was the reality of loving him. Whoever lays their hands on him seems to burn.

The apology pushes into his mouth before anything else. “Aziraphale, I’m s—”

“—Crowley,” Aziraphale meets his eyes at last, and the sight changes him. Whatever feeling he was grappling with a moment ago, it now melts to pity. “Oh, _Crowley,”_

The glasses. He’d forgotten to put them back on.

They’re on the floor a few feet away between Aziraphale and Augustus. He debates reaching for them, but it’s too late now, isn’t it? The damage has been done.

Crowley stands frozen as Aziraphale studies his left eye, the one with the reddened iris and the scar beneath. The one that looks blood-stained and rotten at the best of times. The one he’s invented warnings for— warnings that he seldom got the chance to give.

 _“Don’t.”_ Crowley choked, eyes welling with tears. “Just don’t.”

Bee was wrong— _trying_ is not enough.

He snatches up the sunglasses and darts through the side door, his teacup-heart dragging along behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell that I'm a sucker for art galleries?? Specifically these two idiots getting lost in one ❤️
> 
> Thanks again for y'all's comments. I am Tinkerbell, living on writing, music, and your sweet sweet validation. Lol.


	5. A Reflection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a chapter, but a little sentimental gift to get us through the week. (A callback to Chapter 2 and the night spent in the living room out of solidarity). Enjoy :) 
> 
> Also I'm new to making fan art, so please be gentle with me! :P

Also on tumblr: https://celestialsnek.tumblr.com/post/642148346645053440/artwork-for-driving-in-the-dark-my-humanomens-au


	6. Shattered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mentions of emotional/domestic abuse. If you are uncomfortable with this subject, you can skip to the section with the header "Present Time" <3

_Si operam medicantis exspectas, oportet vulnus detegas._

If you want a doctor’s help, you must show your wound.

Boethius, _de consolatione philosophiae,_ 1.4

**2 Years Earlier**

“Gabriel, _stop that.”_

If he had heard Aziraphale, he doesn’t react. The man only presses closer, his strong arms bracketing his partner as he pushes him up against the refrigerator. His mouth is rough with stubble as he bites at his neck, marking where he’s been. His leg is rubbing against Aziraphale’s crotch as he pleads with him to stop.

In the next room, Gabriel’s colleagues are laughing loudly over their dinner conversation. The wine Aziraphale had gone to retrieve sits on the counter, abandoned, along with a bottle opener and extra glasses.

_How could they not notice what’s how long they’ve been out here? Are they not concerned?_

Gabriel’s hand dips lower, tugging at the waistband of Aziraphale’s trousers.

“Gabriel, _stop_ it. We have guests.”

He tuts at him, clicking his tongue. “They can wait, baby.”

It was his own fault. Aziraphale knew when he’d put the wine in his shopping cart that it was a bad idea. But it was on the list and Gabriel hated it when he was forgetful. But still, he knew.

Every wine-filled evening ended this way, with hands on his waist and no one to pull him away.

“Gabriel, please!” 

Aziraphale flinches at his own volume. _What if someone heard him? What might they think?_

Gabriel was a meticulous man— he fed on the impressions others had of him. If Aziraphale did anything to blight his otherwise perfect record…well, he simply wouldn’t stand for it.

“You’re no fun,” Gabriel informed him tersely, his expression frozen somewhere between disgust and boredom.

He pushes away, stopping halfway between the refrigerator and the kitchen door. He turns back to face Aziraphale, his expression cold and unreadable, as he hooks his finger in the rim of an empty wineglass. 

Before Aziraphale can react he pulls it forward, watching Aziraphale’s face as it shatters on the floor. The shards scatter over the cold tile in all directions.

From the next room, a voice: “Everything ok out there, Gabe?”

“Of course!” He calls, still watching Aziraphale as he backs through the door and into the dining room. “My partner just has butterfingers, that’s all.”

Gabriel winks at him as he crosses the threshold; although he doesn’t quite get the joke, Aziraphale manages to smile back.

Aziraphale is fine— of course he is. It was only a glass, after all.

He waits for his breath to return before retrieving the broom.

**Present Time**

“Crowley?” He knocked twice, the package heavy in his hands.

Inside, he could hear shuffling. 

“I brought you food.” The phrase sounded hollow and lame as it fell from his lips. “I can leave, if you’d like. I can leave the food here and go, but I’d much prefer to see you. To make sure you’re alright.”

Two days. It had been two days since the gallery incident, and Crowley had yet to respond to a single one of Aziraphale’s texts. Or calls. Or that one strongly worded email.

 _Why couldn’t he have waited?_ Once Aziraphale had finally collected himself enough to follow Crowley into the car park it had been too late. His beautiful motorcycle was nowhere to be seen.

_Was it still too late, even now?_

Inside the apartment: silence.

Aziraphale bent down, placing the package gingerly in the doorway. 

_‘What did you expect?’_ The American within him said. _‘He kissed you and ran, Azirphale. What greater indication do you need to realize that he’s not interested in you?’_

If that were the case, so be it. Aziraphale felt confident he could move on with his life and forget about the Mary Oliver-reading stranger he met on the porch. Fine. He lived without Antony James Crowley before, and he could do it again. But the lump in Aziraphale’s throat that refused to be buried told him that he needed to make things right, first. Crowley had kissed him and bolted and he had to know why.

He’d already apologized 5 times via text message, but one more couldn’t hurt, right?

“Crowley.” He pressed a hand to the door, willing him to come forward. “I’m sorry. For whatever I did, I am so sorry. Please just let me fix it.”

The silence stretched on until Aziraphale couldn’t breathe properly anymore. He approached the back stairs sullenly, feeling more than a little exhausted at the prospect of leaving Crowley’s doorway for a final time.

He almost didn’t hear the door as it creaked open behind him.

“‘ziraphale.”

“Crowley.”

The man looked exhausted. At 7pm he was already in his sleep clothes, wearing a grey henley and black pyjama pants. His hair was mussed and tangled and he did not look at Aziraphale so much as he looked _through_ him.

He was also wearing sunglasses, which Aziraphale took to be a very bad sign.

Crowley stared for a long moment before speaking. “Why have you come?”

“I was worried about you, my dear. And you weren’t answering my texts.”

There was something unsettling about the way Crowley stood; straight as a post with arms that folded across his chest, restraining the thing inside.

“‘Was at work. Had to work.”

“So did I,” Aziraphale told him. “I still missed you, though.”

That comment seemed to soften him in some subtle but fundamental way. He shifted on his feet as though adjusting to the new weight. “Want to come in?”

Aziraphale nodded, following him inside.

The apartment looked every bit as empty and dim as it had been when Aziraphale had first seen it. Empty coffee mugs still littered the coffee table, and the reading lamp cast a sobering glow over the space like a watchful spirit. On the television, an episode of Seinfeld was flashing by on mute. 

Crowley took a seat on the far end of the sofa, crouching there with his legs beneath him like an animal waiting to pounce or flee. Perhaps he couldn’t decide which he was, predator or prey.

Aziraphale sat opposite him on the sofa, attempting to take up as little space as humanly possible.

“Crowley, you must know that I’ve been so worried about you.”

“No need to worry about me, ‘ziraphale. ‘M fine.”

Aziraphale— not _Angel._

“I think we both know that that isn’t quite true.”

A wounded look took over him then, tugging at the ends of his thin smile in a way that Aziraphale resented almost as much as he resented himself for causing it.

He gazed down at the cold hardwood where Crowley had once slept with his red blanket, unwilling to leave Aziraphale alone in the dark.

Aziraphale would not leave Crowley alone in the night.

He extended a hand tentatively, placing it on the sofa space between them rather than the skin he so wanted to touch. “You have no idea how sorry I am for the way I ruined things…”

Crowley wrinkled his nose. “How did you ruin things?”

“…well, I don’t know _exactly,_ but I must have.” He cleared his throat, wishing he had a mug or a firm hardcover to hold onto. “I was under the impression that we were having a lovely time up until…”

“…until I kissed you?”

“Well, yes.” He blushed, feeling that there must have been more eyes on him than just the two.

“I’ve been thinking about that a lot, actually.”

“You _have?”_

“‘course. I shouldn’t have pushed myself on you like that.” He stared at the floor in front of him, his brow furrowing in concentration. “You told me your story. I should have done better…been better for you. I’m sorry.”

_Is that what he thought happened? That Aziraphale hadn’t wanted him?_

_Or worse, that he’d looked at Crowley and seen Gabriel instead?_

“While I appreciate your sentiment, that is most certainly _not_ what happened, Crowley.” He spoke slowly and in a firm voice, every word deliberately chosen. “You must know that you weren’t alone in your desires.”

Crowley blinked back at him in surprise. “I wasn’t?”

“No, certainly not! But…we were in a public gallery.” He tugged at his collar, loosening it. “And in front of an emperor, no less. And as for what I told you…well, I’m learning to navigate around it. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have wants.”

His meaning was clear: It doesn’t mean that I don’t want _you._

Crowley looked down at Aziraphale’s open hand but did not take it. “Still. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“If you say so, dear. But I did have a marvellous time.” He smiled, remembering. “It was lovely just to spend time with you.”

“Stop it.”

“I will not! You were very considerate, letting me prattle on about art like that. You have no idea how liberating that felt.”

“Yeah, well, I like the way you talk.”

Now, it was Aziraphale’s turn to blink. “You do?”

Crowley opened his mouth, closed it again, made a noise that resembled a creaky door in the heat of summer, and finally, appeared to contemplate the benefits of lobotomization.

If Aziraphale noticed his bizarre attempt at language, he did not comment on the matter. He was more troubled by the state of Crowley’s hands; the way he played with them as he took up as little real estate on the sofa as possible— an impressive feat, given the length of his limbs.

Atlas had nothing on the tightness of Crowley’s shoulders.

“But the kiss isn’t all that’s troubling you, is it?”

He shook his head no, his hands swiping at his eyes before Aziraphale could even register his tears.

It took all he had not to reach out to him; to take Crowley in his arms and hold him until the shaking stopped, but he had no right. 

They weren’t out of the woods, yet.

“‘M not sad,” he sniffed, rubbing his neck. “‘Don’t worry; just anxious.”

A cold shiver went down Aziraphale’s spine. “Do I make you anxious?”

“No. Well…not you, per se.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

He scrubbed his hands down his face with a sigh. “It makes me anxious…how you look at me, because I’m afraid that that’s going to change.”

“But what could possibly—”

Crowley cut him off with an action.

He removed his glasses. 

“I left you there that day because you looked at me and all I could see was pity.”

His words fell around Aziraphale like snow— a blizzard, burying him alive.

“Crowley, I—”

“I know, I know. ‘Should have warned you. It’s not your fault.” He put the glasses back on. “I always liked how you looked at me, until then.”

 _‘See that?’_ Gabriel chided. _‘You break everything you touch.’_

A thousand sentiments clamoured at Aziraphale’s throat but none of them felt like enough. The idea that Crowley suffered under his gaze was too much to bear, let alone describe.

But he had to do it. 

He had to try.

“Do you remember,” he began, parcelling out his words with careful intention, “when I told you about Gabriel?”

Crowley nodded.

“I’d never spoken about it since it happened and then I just… told you. It just came out and there was no putting it back in the past where it belonged. I knew that you knew and that I would have to live with that.”

Aziraphale sniffed, staring at the back of his outstretched hand and nothing more. “I couldn’t truly see your reaction in the dark but I feared it. I was terrified that the way you spoke to me might change because of it. That you would learn of my suffering and suddenly that’s all you would see, but it didn’t happen like that, did it?”

Again, Crowley shook his head, _no._

“So believe me when I say that I understand what it’s like to be afraid that the idea one has of oneself might be shattered by reality. And you must know that my opinion of you is nothing like what you’ve just described. It was not pity that you saw in my face, but _so many_ other things.”

“Like what?”

“Rage, for one. Anger, disbelief, sadness…” 

Aziraphale raised his hand just slightly, tilting it to reveal a jagged stripe of red that ran through the lifeline of his palm, breaking it into two uneven halves. “Empathy.”

Crowley stared down for a moment, frozen as he studied the mark with his eyes. He then raised his hand and began tracing the uneven path of it with his forefinger from the base of his index finger all the way down to the top of his wrist.

“You aren’t the only one to be marred by life, Crowley; quite the contrary.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

The tender softness of his voice made Aziraphale want to cry. He wanted so desperately to tell him that there is no apology to be made for living. For _surviving._

_Just look at me and never look away and I shall vow to do the same. Nothing exists beyond this space if we don’t want it to. Nothing out there to pull or tear at us as long as we are here. As long as we never look away again._

_Just please, God, won’t you look at me?_

“No. I must apologize to you, Crowley. I’m sorry that you view my reaction to you as something to be afraid of.” He cleared his throat, staunchly ignoring the tear that escaped his left eye as he did so. “You have nothing to fear from me. I need you to know that.”

Crowley’s hand rose to cup his face, his long thumb swiping away the tear as it fell. His breathing seemed steadier now, like the ground beneath his feet had returned.

Aziraphale released a shuddering breath as he leaned into his hand, allowing himself to appreciate the warmth of the gesture after days of radio silence. 

And who knows? Maybe this is how we rebuild ourselves, not by tightening our grip but by allowing ourselves to be held. 

Aziraphale’s remaining tears refused to fall but Crowley made no move to retract his hand once extended. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer your texts,” Crowley told him, his voice only wavering a little. “I feel stupid for hiding from you, now.”

Aziraphale shook his head, removing the hand from his cheek in order to hold it between his own. “You were hurting and you wanted to protect yourself. There’s no sense in scolding your heart for doing its job.”

Crowley scoffed, giving his hand a squeeze as he looked up at the ceiling as if for reassurance. “What planet did you come from?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“No one else talks the way you do.”

“Oh,” he smiled, unsteadily. “Yes, people have informed me of as much.”

“Oh yeah?” He quirked a smile. “What do they usually say?”

“Well, most often they tell me to bugger off.”

Crowley’s surprised laugh turned into a snort and any hope of composure dissolved along with it. Aziraphale soon tumbled after him, their laughter mingling in the dark.

It felt like a gift, to laugh this way with their pasts in the room with them. 

“It’s funny,” Crowley said, sobering at last. “I feel like I’ve known you for years and we’ve only just met.”

“I feel the same way,” Aziraphale confessed, “and yet we know so little about each other.”

That stiffness in Crowley’s shoulder returned, just a little.

“About that…” Crowley let go of Aziraphale’s hands, removing his glasses for the second (and with any luck, _final_ time). His eyes flicked up at Aziraphale, searching him out as he let him look. In doing so, he placed a part of himself upon an altar, offering it up.

At first, all Aziraphale could think was: _thank you._

It was easier to look, this time. The same eyes staring back at him as that day at the gallery were now familiar. The golden brown of one offset the fire in the other, his tousled hair the amalgamation of both pigments, filling in the gap. 

_A capillary must have burst,_ thought Aziraphale, examining the red. 

Beneath his eye, a scar like a sword moved with every tired blink.

“I should have said something…” Crowley whispered, staring at Aziraphale’s chin, “…prepared you for it.”

Aziraphale shook his head, his thumb brushing over the sword as he took Crowley’s face in his hand. “Thank you for trusting me.”

Crowley nodded, his eyes fluttering closed.

“Is it alright if I ask how…”

“My father,” he choked, eyes still screwed tightly shut.

“Your _father_ did this to you?”

 _But didn’t Crowley say that he’d left home when he was 15?_ He thought. _Oh. He had only been a child._

He pictured Crowley as a little boy with gangly limbs and a crooked smile, hiding under the kitchen table with no idea what was coming next.

Or worse, maybe he had. Perhaps he’d even _expected_ it.

Aziraphale closed his eyes, inhaling an unsteady breath.

Crowley nodded, coming back to himself. “He was wearing a ring when he hit me,” he said, matter-of-factly. “That’s why I have that scar. To be fair, he probably forgot that he was wearing it; he was pretty out of it that day.”

Aziraphale nodded, unsure of what to say— what could possibly be said. He pressed his forehead to Crowley’s instead, his hand still cradling his face.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why he did it?”

Aziraphale pulled back, eyeing him suspiciously. “If you’d like to tell me, you can.” He squeezed his hand. “So—do you want to?”

“I… I’m not sure.” He blinked, pulling away from him. His eyes were bright and attentive, the mists clearing. “I feel like I’m supposed to.”

“But do you _want_ to?”

“No.” He sniffed. “I don’t… know if I can.”

“Then don’t. I’m not here to tell you what to do with your heart.”

Crowley laughed without an ounce of humour. “You sentimentalist.”

Aziraphale watched as he fiddled with his hands, wondering how he could still manage to laugh with so much pain in his mouth. He stared at him a while, wondering how he could have gone so long without seeing those eyes.

They reminded him of a cat’s, the way they darted about as they drank everything in.

The eyes of an artist.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” His tone was edged with worry. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m just thinking how beautiful you are,” Aziraphale shrugged. “And that I was pretty lucky you found me at Anathema’s that night.”

Crowley looked as though he wanted to kiss him. Their faces were so close together and there was nothing holding him back from slithering into Aziraphale’s lap and staying there, quite possibly forever. 

But Crowley’s face was still streaked with tears and his eyes were red and puffy and Aziraphale was altogether unwilling to risk the safety of their freshly-righted ship with any sudden movements.

And if all they were was a ship at sea, then Aziraphale knew what he would say: _I want to do right by you, even if ‘right’ means sitting very still and never saying anything at all. That’s why this ship has a sail, so that the winds can find us and take us to where we need to be— there’s no need for paddles or rudders or sextants. And if they never come, if the winds leave us here to the endless sea, then I can live with that._

_It would be a privilege to be lost with you._

And so, he let the moment pass. (There would be more, he hoped.)

“Have you eaten yet?” He asked. “I could make us something, if you’d like.”

“Good luck finding anything to cook with; I haven’t gotten groceries in a while.”

“Never underestimate my abilities, dear.” He gave Crowley’s hand a squeeze as he rose from the sofa, Crowley trailing in his wake.

He slinked over to a vacant barstool, watching as Aziraphale bustled about the kitchen. “I told you there’s nothing.”

“Nonsense. You have…eggs.” He stifled a sigh, staring into the opened fridge. _How can anyone possibly live like this?_

“We’ll have to make do, I’m afraid.” He reached for the fry pan and switched a burner on. “I shall fry us some eggs to go with the bread I brought you, how’s that sound?”

“’s great, Angel.”

_Angel._

Aziraphale nearly burnt himself as he reached for the wrong end of the pan. “There’s that name again.”

Crowley wrinkled his nose. “Don’t like it?”

“No, no. It’s not that. I was just afraid you’d never call me that again, after what happened at the gallery.”

“But you do like it?”

“I do.”

“Good.” He opened the bag of bread and set about cutting it and buttering the slices. “Then I’ll keep saying it until you tell me to stop.”

Aziraphale blushed as he retrieved the cutlery, not entirely sure what to say or how to say it.

He ignored the eyes on his back for as long as he could.

“Say, where’s the—”

Crowley crossed the room to fetch the spatula and offered it to him.

“Thank you, my dear.”

The wry grin on Crowley’s face was less convincing without his glasses, and Aziraphale saw the wince behind his expression. “I’m sorry, do you not like being called ‘dear’?”

“Nah, ’s fine.”

_“Crowley.”_

“It’s fine.”

“I doubt that very much.”

“Well…” he oscillated on the tile floor, leaning one way and then another. “It’s not that I don’t like it, I do. It’s just that…well, you call everybody dear, don’t you?”  
“I suppose that’s true.” He placed the spatula on a plate, waiting for the stove to warm. “But you’re not just anybody…to me.”

If Crowley wondered at all what Aziraphale meant, he said nothing. But the hand on his arm was insistent.

“Is it alright if I kiss you again?” Crowley asked, his face dangerously close to Aziraphale’s own.

Aziraphale smiled as he reached for the eggs. “You may, although I am trying my best to do something nice for you, here. You really should eat something.”

“‘M not hungry.”

The audible growl from Crowley’s stomach betrayed him.

“You should ignore that,” he said.

“I will _not.”_ He cracked one egg and then another, watching as they sizzled in the pan. “You need to eat. There will be plenty of time for that later.”

Crowley answered by hugging Aziraphale from behind and pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek. “Do you promise?”

“I do.”

The meal was good enough, considering the lack of supplies available. The eggs were a bit dry and the bread would have been better toasted, but neither of them could bring themselves to care. As Aziraphale had informed him, it was much too late to be fretting over culinary shortcomings. 

Once they’d both finished their meals, Crowley gathered the dishes and placed them in the sink to soak. Then, he hoisted himself onto the countertop, extending a hand to Aziraphale.

He took the invitation, wordlessly padding across the tile floor.

This time, they did it right.

Aziraphale brushed their noses together questioningly, waiting for Crowley to come to him. (He did not have to wait for long.)

Crowley’s lips were soft and delicate against his own, barely brushing his skin while his hands were a different story. They tugged Aziraphale closer, caressing his neck as their mouths fused together.

If the initial kiss had been the invitation, then the second one was their dance.

Crowley moaned against his lips as Aziraphale deepened the kiss. The welcomed weight in Crowley’s mouth was offset only by the thick hands at his waist, rubbing circles through the thin fabric of his night clothes.

Pulling back to nibble at Aziraphale’s lip elicited a breathy sigh that Crowley was certain he would feel ghosting over his lips for the rest of his life. He chased the sound with all he had, kissing and caressing as Aziraphale leaned upwards to meet him.

The sacredness of the late hour filled with gentle touches and kitchen cabinets was charming in a way that the gallery was not. No pretence existed here. There were no sculptures to see or placards to read. There was simply the push and pull of lips and hands and hair.

No poetry existed beyond heartbeats and the sounds they made as they each crashed into the orbit of the other.

Aziraphale was the first to pull away, swiping his thumb over Crowley’s kiss-swollen lips. His clever eyes watched as he did so, attentive but willing.

“Are you still feeling anxious, dear one?”

“A little,” he admitted, his arms still wrapped around Aziraphale’s neck.

“Hmm. I think perhaps it might do us both some good to slow things down a little, what do you say?” He squeezed Crowley’s hand, hating the doubt that sprang up in his eyes so quickly. “Oh, don’t be sad. I only want for you to be completely happy when we’re together, that’s all. Besides, I haven’t been with anyone in a long time…and it all feels a bit overwhelming, you looking at me like that.”

“How am I looking at you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen that look before.”

“Hmm.”

“Indeed,” Aziraphale sighed, pressing his forehead against Crowley’s. “Say, why don’t we watch something on the telly and try to relax?”

“Fine,” said Crowley, taking Aziraphale’s hand and pulling him into the living room. “But I get to choose what we watch.”

………….

“You look tired,” Crowley informed him, nudging Aziraphale’s shoulder as they watched their third episode of the Golden Girls. With each passing episode Crowley burrowed deeper into Aziraphale’s side until the laughter of one was felt by the other.

“I rather am,” Aziraphale confessed, glancing at his watch. It was 12:10 AM. He would need to catch a bus within the next twenty minutes if he had any hope of getting back to the cottage before sunrise.

Still, he didn’t want to leave.

“Will you be alright if I go?”

“Of course.” Crowley said, nudging Aziraphale’s arm with his own. “Do you have to work tomorrow?”

“Yes, but not until noon. Do you?”

“Nah, it’s my day off.”

“Ah.”

Gently, Crowley entwined their hands. “You can always stay, you know.”

_“Crowley.”_

“I know, I know. I don’t mean anything by it— no pressure or anything. I just…I don’t know.”

“No, what is it?”

He shrugged. “It’s just nice having you here. Plus, you could sleep on the floor and I could take the couch and it would make us even.”

“Counteroffer— we both take the couch and try to get some sleep. Don’t look at me like that— there’ll be no funny business until you’re feeling better. Now, what do you say?”

“Deal.”

Crowley rose from the sofa and disappeared down the hall, returning with the same pyjamas Aziraphale had worn the last time he’d spent the night.

“I know you won’t want to wrinkle your clothes.” 

They each went about their preparations for bed, Aziraphale changing into his pyjamas and Crowley running a brush through his disheveled hair. When he returned, Aziraphale was waiting for him, stretched out on the sofa with a blanket in his hands.

“Come over here, dear one.”

Crowley’s answering groan was half frustrated and half joyful as he clambered onto the sofa. With a helping hand and abundant awkwardness, he settled down onto Aziraphale’s chest, allowing the man to wrap the red blanket around them both.

Aziraphale wrapped his arm around Crowley’s back and it was awkward and warm and new and wonderful all at once. He threaded his tired fingers through Crowley’s hair, stroking and massaging the skin there until he felt those boney shoulders begin to relax at last. 

Aziraphale was keenly aware that his heart was pounding fast and that Crowley could hear it, pressed to his chest as he was. But perhaps this was for the best. Some things cannot be spoken, only listened to— only _felt._

“So is that my new name, then? Dear one?”

Aziraphale’s hand settled at the base of his neck, stroking him from his hairline, down. “Perhaps; what do you think?”

“’S a good start.”

“Oh,” he chuckled, “well then. I suppose I shall have to think on it awhile.”

They laid in the dark for what felt like hours, waiting for sleep to take them. Aziraphale rubbing circles and Crowley breathing lightly against his chest. Around them, the world grew tired and slow, brimming with the tranquil, temporal haze that only the tiredest of souls know how to feel.

“Hey, Angel?” Crowley whispered.

“Hmm?”

“I’m glad you came here tonight.”

His grip tightened around Crowley’s waist. “Yes, well. I’m very glad you answered.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I cannot thank you all enough for subscribing to this fic and commenting so kindly <3 I'm so grateful to all of you, and I hope you've enjoyed this update! ^_^ 
> 
> Our boys are finally healing!! Conversations are happening! Now, if they can just keep this up...


	7. Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A midweek reminder to be kind to yourself. 💕
> 
> (Apologies for the notifications-- had trouble uploading this one.)

Posted to Tumblr [@Celestialsnek](https://celestialsnek.tumblr.com)


	8. Come Away with Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a long one, folks :)

We were together--  
All else has long been forgotten by me.  
— Walt Whitman, _Leaves of Grass_

There are some moments, Crowley believes, that would be easier to endure if he weren’t in them at all. If he weren’t tangled up in the moments like a net, heart pounding as he contemplates his next move. Ghosts (which Crowley is 98% certain don’t exist, but is not confident enough to discredit their existence entirely) have it the easiest. If he were a ghost he could be content with just observing as he walked through lives and walls on his way to somewhere else.

But he also knows that if he were a spectator, he would not be able to touch as he does. He would not be able to spread his hands over the broad chest beneath him, tracing lines with fingernails and memorizing the slopes of Aziraphale’s skin. He would not be able to gather close, breathing in the sweet scent of old books and coffee that followed his lover everywhere he went as though his passions were constantly calling him back.

And if he were a ghost then the hands around him would never tighten as they do. He would never nestle closer to feel those gorgeous fingers against his scalp, pulling and smoothing his hair like wind passing through tall grass.

Aziraphale yawns and Crowley feels it in his chest.

(What a tragedy it would be to not exist at all.)

“G’morning, Angel.”

“Good morning, my darling,” Aziraphale says, his voice heavy and languid from sleep.

 _Darling,_ thought Crowley. _That’s a new one._

Aziraphale sighed, rearranging himself on the sofa. “I suppose we should be getting up soon.”

The clock behind him read 9:45 AM.

“’S not like there’s a rule.” He whispered to the collar of Aziraphale’s henley. “Just a little longer, Angel? ‘M comfortable.”

“I should say you are.” Aziraphale smirked down at him, gently nudging at the stiffness pressed against his hip bone.

Crowley groaned loudly. “I take it back, you’re no angel.”

“No? What am I, then?”

 _“You’reademon,”_ he mumbled, concealing his face against Aziraphale’s chest. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Aziraphale repeated. 

He slipped a hand beneath Crowley’s sleep shirt and began swiping his thumb over the small of his back in gentle reassurance. “Are you feeling any better?”

_Better? Well let’s see: my brain keeps screaming Aziraphale! Aziraphale! at top volume, so there’s that. My heart is still beating fast but not without reason, and I haven’t thought about lions since you sat down on my sofa and said you’d stay the night, so all in all I’m dying, but not for the wrong reason._

Aziraphale’s hand stopped on Crowley’s back. “Crowley?”

“Yes, yup. Better.”

“Good,” Aziraphale whispered, pressing his lips to Crowley’s temple. “I’m glad.”

_What gave him the right to act this way?_

It really is unfair that Aziraphale can go around saying such things while Crowley is constantly on the brink of spontaneous combustion. 

The firm hand in his hair was unequivocal; it informed Crowley that Aziraphale cared for him. _Wanted_ him, even. But what was he supposed to _do_ with that information? 

Well, he knew what he wanted to do with it. He wanted to crawl into Aziraphale’s lap and stay there. To snog him senseless in every room of his messy little apartment. But what did Aziraphale want? Crowley had lost himself in the near-constant erasing and redrawing of boundaries between them; the question of what he ought to do next had him wishing for a roadmap and a compass.

Aziraphale stretched his toes and let out a weary sigh. “I do believe we should get up soon. My back is rather sore from the sofa.”

“So my sofa isn’t good enough for you, huh?” Crowley rose with a half-hearted stretch and sat up, retreating to sit on the armrest opposite him. “Next time you’ll be wanting my bed, I expect.”

“Only if you’ll be there as well.” Aziraphale’s face reddened as he said, his eyes falling to the floor. “I’m sorry, my dear. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t mean to pressure…”

Pressure— more like _tempt._ Without entirely meaning to he pictured Aziraphale spread out on his silk sheets, grinning with his whole face because Crowley said something funny. The mornings would come alive with Aziraphale in them, he was sure of it. All he could imagine was Aziraphale, puttering around the kitchen in his cardigan and slippers and (Crowley prayed) nothing else.

That particular mental image was a lot to process before 10AM.

“’t’s fine, Angel. I like it.”

“You do?”

He shrugged. “Sure. I like knowing that there will be other mornings like this one.”

For a moment, Aziraphale’s expression was murky as he repositioned himself on the sofa. It was only once he sat comfortably with his back flush against the sofa did he turn to look at Crowley.

“Darling? Won’t you come over here?”

Crowley silently obeyed, taking Aziraphale’s hand as he guided him onto his lap. The morning air was cool, but Aziraphale felt warm beneath him. With his legs on either side of Aziraphale’s thick waist, Crowley held him there, his hands finding purchase in Aziraphale’s hair. His slender fingers massaged the angel-down curls at his nape as he kissed into Aziraphale’s mouth, long and slow. The early hour loosened their limbs as they explored one another on the black sofa. 

Kissing Aziraphale was a sensation Crowley had yet to get over. It was exciting in a revelatory, toe-curling sort of way. It had him chasing every sensation, every touch, as though he had never been touched before. It was like inventing a language out of thin air; every movement contained a meaning that no pre-existing word could match.

Crowley moved to kiss along Aziraphale’s jaw but the man had other intentions. With strong hands bracketing Crowley’s face, Aziraphale guided him to his lips once more. Crowley followed him willingly, kissing him as he should have from the beginning— slowly and surely, with more than a little reverence for the hands that held him.

It felt good to be held by something other than dread.

“We will get it right, this time,” Aziraphale told him, his hands still cradling his lover’s face. “No more missteps.”

Crowley nodded his head in agreement before dipping down to trail kisses along Aziraphale’s neck. He placed his lips just below his jaw, sucking in where he knew a tight bundle of nerves resided.

Aziraphale gasped, his hands sinking to Crowley’s hips as his mouth fell open. “Oh _Crowley.”_

Hearing his name sent a shiver down Crowley’s spine. Aziraphale’s tone was light and broken by pleasure and it was all because of _him._

He sucked harder in response before laving his tongue over the tender area.

“You know,” said Aziraphale, sounding more than a little lost, “I do have to go to work later. And that means facing Anathema.”

“Mhmm.” Crowley was still mouthing at his neck, trailing kisses down the length of it.

“So don’t be too rough— what will people think, seeing me like this at work?”

“That someone cares about you,” Crowley said, pulling back to straighten Aziraphale’s shirt as much as he did not want to. “Probably.”

Whatever clever retort was perched on Aziraphale’s tongue died there as Crowley adjusted his collar. It occurred to him then that it would be incredibly easy to phone in sick. He wouldn’t even need to phone in, really. He could just text Anathema that he was feeling under the weather and then spend the rest of the day with his hands in Crowley’s hair. Perfect.

Except, of course, that it wouldn’t be. They had agreed to take things slow for both their sakes, which Aziraphale knew wouldn’t happen if he were to spend the day in Crowley’s apartment. Even conversations between them seemed to escalate rapidly and as much as Aziraphale _did_ want to experience sunrise from the vantage point of Crowley’s bedroom, he knew that it wouldn’t last for long. Whatever interest Crowley had in him would surely fade once their relationship became intimate. Once all of Aziraphale’s shields of clothing had been removed, Crowley would be able to see him more clearly and the game would be lost.

Even with a losing hand, Aziraphale wanted their game to last as long as possible.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley asked, searching his eyes. “Where did you go, just now?”

 _‘Just tell him you’re not up for this,’_ the voice inside him chided. _‘He’s going to find out eventually.’_

The feeling of Crowley’s fingers scratching at his shoulders brought him back to reality. “Never mind, dear one.” 

“Alright.” He blushed, the new nickname still new and unusual. “Say, how about you shower and I can walk you to work? We can stop by the bakery on the corner for some breakfast, if you’d like.”

 _Thank heavens for you,_ he wanted to say.

Instead: “That sounds lovely.”

Aziraphale showered and dressed, careful to tie Crowley’s grey scarf around his neck to conceal the series of red markings his lips had left behind. 

He traced a finger around the edge of one, pressing into it just enough to feel the pressure once again. 

_‘They’ll think that someone cares about you…’_

The smile he gave the mirror was not entirely intentional.

They did end up visiting the bakery, as well as a local coffee shop on the way to the library. They fell into step with one another easily as they trod through the snow, trading stories and predictions about the new week ahead.

 _Is this what it would be like,_ Aziraphale wondered, _if I were to stay with Crowley more often?_

He imagined waking in Crowley’s bed, the one they _shared,_ and getting up slow. Trips to the bakery when neither of them wanted to cook breakfast and Crowley leaning into him on the walk as though he’d forgotten how to walk alone. 

In short, his imagination as proving to be something of a problem.

When they arrived at the steps of the Library, Crowley hung back, his foot lagging on the sidewalk as though he didn’t know how to leave it.

“What’s wrong?”

Crowley looked to the sky, squinting through his glasses. “I haven’t scared you off, have I?”

Aziraphale shook his head, his eyes filled with something he couldn’t name. “Not even close.”

Nothing could have prepared Aziraphale for the rush of affection that awaited him on the other side of that night. 

Crowley, although he would never admit it himself, was a terribly affectionate man. He was never content to sit beside Aziraphale without an element of touch. They watched telly together with Crowley’s legs swung over Aziraphale’s lap. They walked with arms linked and shoulders brushing, and the moment they crossed the threshold into Crowley’s apartment Aziraphale felt a little less alone. As a result, Crowley’s bare studio soon became a place of refuge before and after work shifts, and on evenings when the only things worth doing were watching Netflix and snogging on the couch.

Particularly that last one.

If Crowley had been aching for touch, then Aziraphale was more than willing to indulge him. 

Gabriel had never been one for cuddling on the sofa or walking hand-in-hand. Whatever physical warmth he had was reserved for moments in which he knew he would get something in return. There was nothing casual about the touches he gave; they all came with a price.

But Crowley…Crowley never asked for anything. He kissed Aziraphale with patience and care, always waiting for Aziraphale to go to him first. Aziraphale set the pace with his hands and Crowley followed. They kissed at a maddeningly slow pace, each careful not to tread on the boundaries of the other. And when it all felt like too much— when Aziraphale was beside himself and uncertain of how to handle the rush of affection aimed his way— Crowley just held him. 

“Whatever you want, Angel,” he would say as he wrapped his arms around him.

It made it hard to speak, sometimes, knowing that the hands that held him only knew how to give.

So no, Crowley never asked for anything. Although, Aziraphale knew, he wanted plenty. Every now and again Aziraphale would catch him staring, his eyes hungry as they coursed over him. Their eyes would meet and Crowley would smile, already brushing it off in favour of watching whatever it was that lit up his old telly.

Being wanted is a desperately lovely thing.

Unfortunately, it is also a gift Aziraphale isn’t sure how to hold.

As a result, their romantic rendezvous were limited entirely to the interior of Crowley’s apartment. 

And when Crowley drops Aziraphale off at the cottage late at night, retrieving the small stash of literature from the compartment of his bike, he carries them to the door for him without a word. He lingers in the hall, waiting for the door to close before walking back to his bike, unaware that Aziraphale is peering out at him from the high window.

Inviting Crowley inside of his home (and his life) was not something that Aziraphale knew how to do. His loft (which, thanks to Crowley, he was beginning to refer to as a _cottage_ ) was something of a victory to him. It was the first place that felt like his, filled with books and teacups which he had chosen for himself and no one else. It was out of the way, tidy, and every bit as quiet as he was. 

And because there is no polite way to say _I want my barriers almost as much as I want you to tear them down,_ he says nothing. He just watches until the bike disappears into the night.

And when his tired thoughts go soft, a steady voice reminds him: _His leaving will obliterate you someday._

“I know,” Aziraphale says aloud, and goes to run a bath.

The Tadfield Public Library has been more than a little hectic, lately.

You wouldn’t think that ‘hectic’ is something that a library is capable of being, but it is. Upgrading their [according to some] _ancient_ computer system may sound like a marvellous idea to the modern visitor, but in practice it is something of a hassle. The desire to support local businesses in Tadfield has led the library’s board members to commission the assistance of a trendy new upstart. However innocent their intentions were, there is, in fact, a major catch.

With the owner out of _Finder_ out of town, his assistant is the only one on hand to see to the transition. Considering that the young man had already managed to spill coffee on Anathema and a keyboard at the same time, Aziraphale did not harbour much faith for the future of the project.

To make matters worse, it seemed that Anathema was quite smitten with the young man. Since Newt Pulsifer began at the library, Anathema has laid off on ridiculing Aziraphale for his lateness and ill-concealed love bites (thank God) in favour of ogling the young assistant.

Aziraphale is willing to admit that he’s a kind enough fellow, with enough bumbling nervousness to make Aziraphale seem moderately sane by comparison, but her interest in the man remained [at least to him] utterly unfathomable.

“He’s cute, right?” Anathema asked, depositing a stack of books next to Aziraphale on the desk.

Aziraphale glanced at Newt, who was turning a keyboard over in his hands as though seeing one for the first time. “Mhm.”

“What? Why are you making that face?”

He sighed. “Anathema, I say this as your loving friend: you will eat that poor man alive.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”

Aziraphale scoffed in response. His assessment was hardly inaccurate; the men and women Anathema pursued may be well intentioned, but they never stuck around for long. The woman was sharp and headstrong— as much as he cared for her, Aziraphale had to admit that she was a force to be reckoned with; a storm that left few survivors.

Meanwhile, Newt looked anxious enough that he might mistake a strong wind for a personal insult.

“You will crush the poor boy beneath your shoe like a bug. Or a moth.”

She grinned proudly. “Well, we can’t all be chasing mysterious strangers on motorcycles.”

Newt clicked a few buttons on the keyboard before resigning himself to failure and leaning over to unplug the monitor from the wall. 

“Anathema, what I am about to say to you, I say with the utmost certainty: there is absolutely, categorically, _nothing_ at all mysterious about Newton Pulsifer.”

In typical Anathemaic fashion, she ignored him. “Do you think he reads Shakespeare? I should give him some Shakespeare…”

Aziraphale watched his friend as she strutted over to him, feeling a tad sorry for Crowley and all of the poetry he’d talked him into reading.

Well, only a little bit sorry.

The following Sunday, Aziraphale received a rather vague text urging him to meet Crowley outside the cottage with a warm coat. He did as he was told and was only mildly annoyed by the fact that his ten text messages seeking further clarification were ignored entirely. 

The day, Crowley informed him, was meant to be a surprise. 

Aziraphale was outside for only a few moments before a car horn sounded in the distance. As the noise grew louder, a dark Bentley emerged from the tree line, flying over the road in a flurry of purple-orange flames. 

“Morning Aziraphale!” The driver called, laying on the horn twice more for good measure. 

The vehicle came to a screeching stop in front of him as the driver rolled down the window, grinning maniacally up at him through the shadow of blackened frames.

“Crowley! What— what is this?”

“Well, seeing as we both have the day off, I thought we could take her for a ride. What do you say?” 

“Is this…allowed?”

Crowley shrugged, though his expression harboured not an ounce of doubt. “Probably not. But it’s going to be in the shop another two weeks before the owner comes to get it. I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“I…but where are we going to go?”

“I thought you could tell me,” said Crowley. “She’s got a full tank of gas in her. Just tell me where you want to go, and I’ll take you there. Now come on, get in. It’s freezing out there.”

Aziraphale did as he was told, taking in one final glance at the cottage as he hurried around to the other side. He was certain his landlady was huddled in a window somewhere, peering at them through floral curtains.

“So—where do you want to go, Angel?”

Aziraphale thought for a moment, though his answer came quickly enough. “I want to see the ocean.”

“Yeah?”

“We don’t have to, of course. I know it’s a long way off.”

“No, no. I’m just surprised is all. Any particular one?” 

“Perhaps we could go to Folkestone? I know a beach there that is covered in rocks, not sand, so we won’t have to worry about the state of the car.”

Crowley nodded, a slanted smile spreading across his face. “Beach it is.”

They stopped by Crowley’s apartment first, pillaging the fridge and pantry for food and towels. Aziraphale prepared turkey sandwiches, slipping them into an old lunch bag that Crowley had long forgotten he owned. Beneath them, a Queen album hummed through the floorboards from Distopia Records. The shop opened late on Sundays, but the routine was always the same: Queen’s Greatest Hits spinning on the record player a solid ten minutes before the shop was due to open.

They performed their tasks in tandem as _Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy_ crooned from the shop below and loitered in the apartment until the song had ended. When it did, they set out for Folkestone.

Although the drive to Folkestone was long and winding, it had its moments, too. With his left hand, Crowley gripped the steering wheel tightly, taking care of them and the car he was responsible for all at once. With his other hand, he gesticulated in conversation and (much to Azirphale’s chagrin) gestured rudely to a passing motorist. But mostly it sat on Aziraphale’s knee, where he much preferred for it to be.

Watching Crowley drive was a rare luxury. Aziraphale was so often stationed behind him as he drove the bike, oblivious to his words or facial expressions as he drove on. But now, in the sunny glow of a pleasant afternoon, Aziraphale studied him keenly. His hands fluttered over the wheel, tapping out a rhythm Aziraphale failed to recognize. His eyes were alive, darting from the road towards Aziraphale and back again. As careful as he was to preserve the state of the car, Aziraphale felt his gaze as strongly and steadily as though it were constant.

It seemed like quite the impressive feat to Aziraphale, who had spent a lifetime staring down the road ahead of him, eager to disappear. 

“You ok?” Crowley asked, tapping his knee with his knuckle.

“Yes, fine. Jolly good.”

“Jolly good? Hmph. That’s a new one.” He fiddled with the GPS on his phone, examining the screen before returning it to the empty cupholder. “So who are you bringing along today, Angel?”

Aziraphale pulled the aged green spine from his knapsack and began flipping the pages. “Whitman, as it happens.”

“Whitman,” Crowley repeated, pronouncing the name like it carried a bitter taste.

“Not a fan?”

“‘Didn’t say that. I suppose I don’t know him, really.”

“Perhaps you can read him someday. I think you might like him.”

“Maybe. Dunno. Not much of a reader, me.”

Aziraphale’s mouth fell open as it so often did when he was scandalized. “Not true! I’ve seen you read.”

“Yeah, poetry, and not in giant tomes like the one you’ve got today.” He removed his hand and began adjusting his sunglasses. “You can tell me about him, though. You know, if you want.”

“You want me to read to you, is that it?”

He shrugged. “You have a good voice for reading. And I know you want to.”

Aziraphale began reciting from _Leaves of Grass_ followed by _Song of the Open Road,_ pausing now and then to argue for or against Whitman’s logic as needed. 

The old poet was a tad too rosy for Crowley’s liking— Crowley was a creature of the ashes. He liked his authors to be good and tarnished, with bonus points for burn marks. But it wasn’t quite that he preferred tragedies to other genres; comedies were his favourite, if he had to choose. 

This conversation was one they’d had many times.

“It’s just that they’re more sincere, aren’t they? The ones who’ve suffered.”

Aziraphale’s rebuke was never far behind.

“But how can you judge an author based solely on their lives? Louisa May Alcott claimed that she wrote ‘jolly tales’ precisely because of her troubling life.”

“Yeah, sure, but I’m not just talking about intention or subject matter. Chekov didn’t like heroes unless they were tragic and I think it’s that way with all characters…all _books,_ even.”

“So… you want narratives that end tragically?”

“Hng, er, no. It’s not about endings, Angel. I just think that— ok, it’s like this: an English professor is supposed to be an expert on English literature, yes?”

“Indeed.”

“And a car mechanic is expected to be an expert on cars, right?”

“Yes, obviously.”

“Obviously. And do you think that a mortician is an expert in death?”

“Crowley, what on earth—”

“Just answer the question, Angel.”

He sighed. “Well, I suppose so, yes.”

“Wrong. A mortician is an expert at _life,_ not death. They may know how to care for a corpse; they can— what’s the word?”

“Embalm?”

“Yes! That. They can _embalm_ them, fixing their hair and makeup until they appear as lifelike as humanly possible so that the people attending the funeral will say what they always do on television— ‘wow, they look like just like they’re sleeping!’” He took a long sip of his coffee as they rounded the next turn. “People who work with loss and suffering aren’t experts in suffering on account of their prolonged exposure. It’s a field in which no one excels. But it does make for good poets.”

He scratched at his temple, slicking back a thick flop of hair. “So no, I don’t want to read stories that are _only_ about suffering. I just want to read about life as written by someone who knows enough to be grateful for it.”

He turned to face Aziraphale and found him staring back with Whitman folded on his lap. “What’s wrong? Why’re you looking at me like that?”

Aziraphale linked their hands together. “You really are brilliant sometimes, you know.”

“Come on.”

“You’re _brilliant,”_ he repeated, looking more than a little proud. “And incredibly sexy.”

Crowley’s eyebrows shot upwards, threatening to leap off of his head altogether. “Seriously?”

“Oh yes. There are few things in life more arousing than some astute literary analysis.”

“I hate you so much.”

“No you don’t.”

“You’re right,” he said, taking the final exit into Folkestone. “I don’t.”

The beach at Folkestone was just as Aziraphale had remembered it. The shoreline stretched for miles, with the sand-covered portion occupied by couples and lingering tourists, and the rocky eastern portion of the beach nearly deserted by comparison. From their stoney vantage point they faced the white cliffs of Dover across the waves. Behind them, the colourful city of Folkestone brimmed with shops and music and life. Their towels did little to protect them from the rocky surface, but the sounds of gulls and crashing waves made it easier to bear.

Together, they ate their sandwiches and discussed all manner of unimportant things.

“So why Folkestone?” Crowley asked, picking at his sandwich.

“I like it here,” Aziraphale said, pausing to breathe in the salt air of the Channel. “I used to come here with my family.”

“Did you?”

He nodded. “We would come here on vacations, way back when. I always told myself I would come back here someday, but I just kept putting it off.”

There was a sadness to his gaze that Crowley didn’t like. He nudged him with his arm, offering him the rest of his sandwich. “So you decided to come to the beach during the winter like an insane person. Makes sense.”

Aziraphale said nothing, but Crowley took his smile as a personal victory.

Eventually, Crowley mustered up enough courage to approach the water. He wandered to the water’s edge, dipped a hand into it, and promptly decided that a February swim was antithetical to his entire existence. They had driven most of the afternoon to get here, and he reasoned that after such a long drive, he was entitled to a bit of relaxation.

By relaxation, he meant huddling against Aziraphale’s side for warmth. Thankfully, Crowley had had the foresight to pack blankets along with their towels, and they huddled under them now. When Crowley raised his phone to capture a photograph of them both, they looked like tired monks draped in shadowy cloaks. (Aziraphale even held a book in his hands— their proxy for a missing medieval manuscript.)

As the sun began to set and reading became a challenge, Aziraphale laid the book aside. Together, they watched the fiery skyline, each dreading the long drive home but saying nothing. The moment felt too young to break.

It came easily, sometimes— this thing between them. In between panic attacks and missteps, there was a tenderness to their interactions that neither one of them had known before each other. It came in little flashes of light; Aziraphale would smile a certain way or Crowley would lay his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder as he read and the future, laid out like dominoes about to topple, would disintegrate into sand beneath their feet.

In his 24 years on this earth, tenderness was a subject which Aziraphale had seldom had the chance to study. But he recognized it in Crowley’s face, and sometimes, in his hands. It tickled his skin like raindrops and made him wish for foolish things.

Like a love that could last.

After nearly two years of dreading door slams and hushed conversations, Crowley’s gentle uncertainty felt like a break in the clouds. 

“‘ziraphale?”

“Sorry, what were you saying?”

He pressed his face to Aziraphale’s shoulder, muttering against it. “I was asking you what your favourite Whitman quote is, but you seem to be somewhere else. Are you alright?”

 _I’m bloody terrified,_ he wanted to say. _I’m terrified that this is all just a dream, and one day you’ll wake up and leave me here on the beach or in my library, where the books don’t talk back to me the way you do. I’m afraid every time you tell me that you like the sound of my voice that one day you won’t. One day it will be as common as any other, or worse, a nuisance to you, and I’ll stop being this special thing you claim that I am. But my own mediocrity isn’t the worst of it— the worst thing would be you leaving._

_When you leave, all things sweet and beautiful will follow you out of my life._

“I’m fine,” he said, fiddling with the book in his hands. “I’ve been thinking about what you said— about Whitman and undertakers.”

“That was nothing, Angel; forget I said anything.”

“Except I can’t, Crowley. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon and I think that you were right about suffering, but wrong about Whitman.”

Crowley’s clever eyes searched his face for reason. “Oh really?”

“Yes, really. I think…I think that Whitman is at his best when he speaks simply. I’ve always loved the passages where he’s laconic, using short phrases that get under your skin a bit. And he says…” he opened the book, flipping to page 67. “…‘these are the days that must happen to you.’ Most people think he’s talking about endurance…about suffering.”

“But he’s not?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he admitted. “I think suffering was probably his intent, but it works the other way, too. I agree that the days that acquaint us with suffering shape us, but so do the good ones. And neither experience is more valuable than the other. And maybe sometimes the harder choice is to let the good ones in— the ones that feel like a betrayal to accept after traveling for so long in darkness.”

Crowley’s face was dark and unreadable, as though the words he wished to voice were buried deep within him. His eyes were fixed on the sea but his hand still held Aziraphale’s.

His partner’s voice was imbued with a seriousness that told him he wasn’t only speaking about Whitman. 

(Poetry is not limited to pages alone)

When Aziraphale spoke again, there were tears in his eyes. “We _deserve_ to be happy, Crowley. And I know there are things you don’t tell me—”

 _“—Aziraphale,_ listen, I—”

“—It’s fine, I don’t mind it; really, I don’t. I mean, I hope you’ll tell me someday, but what I’m saying is that you are more important than your past, and so are we.” He squeezed Crowley’s gloved hand in his. “We’ve each had our fair share of _‘days that must happen to us,’_ but these days are just as important.”

“These are the days that must happen to us,” Crowley quoted, watching Aziraphale’s face. His eyes were like sunlight— he couldn’t look directly at them.

“And how lovely they are,” Aziraphale said, leaning closer, “to be spent with you.”

The winds, Crowley felt, were against him. They carried Aziraphale’s words through him like a gale wind, shaking him down to his core and yet he didn’t feel cold. The warmth seemed impossible, but there it was, lighting him from the inside like a candle.

“I don’t know what to do with you when you’re like this,” he confessed, halfway between laughter and tears. “My words never seem to equal yours.”

“Kiss me, then.”

And he did. He kissed him as the sun sank lower and the tourists began to make for their cars. He kissed him as the birds crooned and the waves beat on, oblivious to the lovers on the rocks. He kissed him until the arm beneath him grew tired and his legs ached atop the cold stones and even then he did not stop.

Unbeknownst to Crowley, Aziraphale was making a vow; a pledge to whatever force it is that drags the water in and out so beautifully. He vowed that he would try harder and, that if he were to be destroyed by the rapid beating of his own heart, it would be for a good reason.

It would be because of _Crowley._

“I think,” Aziraphale whispered over Crowley’s lips, “that we should begin our journey back before it gets too dark.”

Crowley nodded before rising to collect their things, however much he did not want to. 

The ride back to Tadfield had a tranquility to it that their journey to the sea had not had, as though the water had returned to them a long forgotten thing.

Crowley watched the road and Aziraphale in equal measure, his shoulders hanging looser than they had (quite possibly) in years. The tune to _Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy_ echoed through his mind the whole drive home and he hummed the chorus now and again, tapping it out against the steering wheel. 

You could live an entire life in a moment like that.

“So,” he said, fiddling with the radio as he turned towards Tadfield, “back to the cottage?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, staring out the windshield. “Perhaps you would like to come in? To come with me?”

It was a small miracle that Crowley did not crash the car as he rounded the curve.

“Er… are you sure, Angel?”

Aziraphale nodded. “I am.”

“Then yes; yes, I would.”

In spite of every sharp and cynical bone in his body, Crowley could feel the hope within him rising.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Progress! Is! Happening!
> 
> In case you're interested, Whitman's _Song of the Open Road_ can be read here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48859/song-of-the-open-road  
> ("These are the days that must happen to you" is from section 11)
> 
> I never know what to write in these end notes, so suffice it to say that I am so grateful for all of your kind comments on this fic-- they make me so happy. <3
> 
> And if you ever want to freak out about our two lovable idiots, feel free to message me on Tumblr @celestialsnek :)


	9. Happiness is a Blank Cheque

On my breathing the stars rise and set.  
At my lips fragrances come to drink,  
And I recognize the wrists of distant angels.  
— Rainer Maria Rilke, from _The Book of Images; The Silence,_ trans. Edward Snow.

**September 6, 1998**

“But whose side are you on, if not mine?”

His mother sighed as she stepped out onto the front porch. He watched as she pulled a cigarette from its box and began toying with the lighter. 

She sighed as her husband joined her on the porch. “It’s not about _sides,_ Michael.”

Crowley had always enjoyed watching her smoke. She had a habit of looking to the sky as she did it, releasing a puff of dragon smoke that wound upwards to join with the other clouds. Her red dressing gown only added to the display— some nights she was a flame, flickering through the darkness. 

She winked at her son as she passed by the window. 

His little nose was pressed against the glass as he watched them through it. He fogged the windowpane with his breath and imagined that he was smoking, too.

“Then what is it about, Agatha?” His father questioned, ripping his tie from his neck. “Tell me; I genuinely want to know.”

She cloaked herself in smoke, watching the ashes fall away at her feet as she flicked the tired cigarette. “I told you; I didn’t go with you tonight because I wasn’t feeling well.”

“You’re never feeling well so why don’t we get right to the point of it?” He stepped closer as he said it, hands tight at his sides.

Crowley doesn’t remember stepping through the open doorway. Somehow he blinked and found himself outside, the feet of his stuffed rabbit dangling precariously from his hand.

“Get inside, Crowley!” His mother shouted firmly; her mouth was kind but her eyes were on fire.

“Antony!” His father boomed, lumbering towards him; his words were pushed out through gritted teeth. “Get. Inside.”

Clumsy hands ushered Crowley back inside. The wooden door slammed shut in front of him, followed by the screen door for good measure.

Crowley fumbled for only a moment before retreating to the place that forgotten children and toy rabbits know so well — Away.

Crowley went away.

**Present Time**

_“Crowley,”_ Aziraphale prompted, his hand resting gently on Crowley’s forearm. “Are you alright?”

“Yes. Yeah, sorry Angel. You were saying?”

“Just that we’re nearly home by now.” He cleared his throat. “You seem particularly…thoughtful.”

Crowley quirked a smile. “A real change for me then, eh?”

Aziraphale did not smile back. “Hardly. Are you thinking about anything in particular?”

He shrugged. “Not much. Just remembering.”

“Remembering what, exactly?”

“Folkestone, I guess? I used to come here too, back in the day.”

“Really?” He asked, depositing Whitman on the dashboard. “Why didn’t you say?”

“Dunno. Didn’t seem important.” 

He could see the cogs in Aziraphale’s mind turning, as though he wanted to ask more but didn’t know how. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before settling on silence.

Although he hadn’t asked the question, Crowley answered him just the same. “My parents took me one time.”

“To the beach?”

To the hotel, more like. His father had been a very particular person; a day at the beach would involve sand and wrinkled shirts and tourists, all of which he had no time for. The hotel pool was closer, too. He could keep an eye on them from a distance. By comparison with the easy accessibility of the clean-lined swimming pool, the beach was an ocean away.

“Er, we went swimming,” he said plainly. 

Why was this so _difficult_ for him? He disliked questions almost as much as he disliked answering them and so his uncompromising character had him leaving bits of his life like breadcrumbs for Aziraphale to find. Every time he tore a piece from the loaf it occurred to him that his supply was getting smaller and smaller as he gave himself away.

He stared through the windshield and waited for Folkestone’s hold on him to loosen.

“We’re almost to yours.”

The little cottage was even more charming after dark. A warm haze of light illuminated the first floor and through the second window Crowley thought he saw a figure peering out. 

Aziraphale released a put-upon sigh as the engine switched off.

“Everything ok?”

“Yes, fine,” he said. “It’s just that my landlady is still awake at this hour, which means that she’s working.”

“She works at 10 o’clock at night?”

“Well, she has a…very particular clientele.”

“That’s very…dedicated of her?”

“Indeed.”

 _Huh,_ thought Crowley. _She must be a business type. Probably on a conference call with Japan as we speak._

Aziraphale led Crowley through the side door and into a narrow hallway. Inside, the walls were adorned with faded bluebells atop a garish shade of pink. Hall tables were occupied by knick-knacks and porcelain figures twirling in pastel gowns. The decorator, Crowley decided, must have lived a life utterly devoid of colour and romance in their youth to be capable of poisoning a house with this level of floral-patterned romanticism.

The image of the international business woman began to fade in his mind, replaced by a hunch-backed old woman with curlers and a drinking problem.

That, or Rose Nylund.

“Now,” Aziraphale said, grabbing his arm conspiratorially, “you must watch out for the second step—”

Too late. Crowley’s foot was already pressing onto it, forcing a loud creak that coloured Aziraphale’s face a charming shade of pink.

From the next room: “Aziraphale? Is that you?”

“As if she hadn’t seen us from the window,” Aziraphale muttered, taking a step back from Crowley’s side.

“There you are! And you have a _man!_ How lovely.”

The eclectic woman that emerged from the double-row of hanging beads was truly a sight to behold. Her tightly-synched dressing gown was the same alarming shade of pink as the wallpaper and traces of it was streaked across her eyelids as well. She extended her hand to Crowley and he took it, holding it awkwardly in front of him like an actor who had forgotten his lines. In his other hand, he clung to Whitman for dear life.

“I am Madam Tracy,” she announced. The curlers atop her head bobbed in time with her words, diminishing the grandiosity exuded by her sultry tone.

“I, uh— Crowley.” He noticed he was still holding her hand and promptly dropped it. “Pleasure.”

“All _mine.”_ She responded, turning her attention towards Aziraphale. “Honey, I had no idea your man was so handsome! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Yeah, why didn’t you tell her that, ‘ziraphale?”

He passed Crowley hurriedly on the stairs as though he were clambering into a lifeboat. “Yes, well, I hate you both and we really should be going now.”

“Oh, don’t let me keep you from…whatever it is you’re going to do.” She cooed, taking Aziraphale’s face from pink to red.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Crowley said.

Madame Tracy’s voice dropped an octave as she stepped away, her eyes alight with mischief. “Now tell me what you’re going to do to me.”

Crowley nearly dropped the book onto the floor. “I—beg your pardon??”

The woman pulled her hair back as she stepped away, gesturing towards an earpiece. “On the phone, love.”

“Aziraphale…” he began, eyes still fixated on the beads. “What just happened?”

Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand, tugging him higher on the stairs. “Come along, dear.”

The noise that rose from his throat was somewhere between a scream and a laugh. “A—Aziraphale?”

“Yes, dear?”

“What exactly does she do?”

He smiled as they reached the doorway. “You’re a clever boy, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“And she lives here, with you?”

“Yes, obviously.”

“But—but you’re a…”

He frowned. “I’m a what?”

“A…” he squinted as though puzzling out a complex maths equation. “…A librarian.”

Aziraphale snorted so loudly he nearly dropped his keys in surprise. “Nothing gets past you, dear.”

The inside of Aziraphale’s flat was, if anything, the exact _opposite_ of Crowley’s. It was slightly larger, with windows along the front wall that were guarded by ruffled curtains which Crowley instinctively took to be the handiwork of Madame Tracy. Two tall bookcases bracketed the bed which was practically drowning in pillows, and any empty surfaces (of which there were remarkably few) were occupied by swaying stacks of books. 

The entire flat was open-plan, so that the only privacy seemed to be the door to the adjacent bathroom. You could lay in bed with a full view of the kitchen.

Crowley shuddered at the thought.

“Are you cold?” Aziraphale asked. “I can make you some tea, if you’d like.”

“I’m fine, Angel.”

He looked over the cream-coloured furniture, hardwoods, blankets, and potted flowers to find that the entire space was steeped in Aziraphale’s warmth. Next to the door sat a side table with a bowl for keys and a silver picture frame with a black-and-white photo of Aziraphale and Anathema laughing on a park bench.

And in the middle of it all was Crowley, a dark-clothed, lanky question mark with a book in his hands, unsure of where to put it. 

If Aziraphale noticed his awkwardness, he said nothing. He had the same look on his face as he had at the beach; a tender curiosity that lingered behind his eyes.

Crowley was the first to break the silence. “So, uh…where does Whitman live?”

“Live?” Aziraphale asked in a bemused tone. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”

“Am I wrong?”

“No, not at all.” He shuffled over to the first bookcase, indicating with his index finger a narrow gap in the middle of a shelf.

“You keep Whitman next to Miller?” Crowley remarked.

“Oh, yes. It’s not alphabetical.”

“So…what system do you have, exactly?”

“It’s nothing formal, really. There’s a poetry section but it’s not absolute. I like to group authors together who have a similar tone or whose book spines look particularly fetching together. And I like to have new books accessible so I can always grab one on my way out the…why are you looking at me like that?”

Crowley folded his arms, wishing Aziraphale had a proper carpet for him to dig his heels into. “That’s not a system.”

“Well, not properly, but—”

“Angel, if you came over to my flat and I _didn’t_ have a coherent organizational system by which to sort my literature, you would have a fit.”

“I would _not.”_

“You would.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “You don’t have any books anyway.”

“I have books,” he replied, his arm colliding with Aziraphale’s as he loosened his stance. They were stood much too close together and the space between them only continued to shrink as Aziraphale stepped closer, his breath hot against Crowley’s cheek as they bickered half-heartedly.

“Yes, the books I _gave_ you.”

“And a cookbook.” He added helpfully. “And a tv manual.”

“A real classic, I’m sure.”

Crowley was so caught up in the heat on his cheek that he failed to notice which happened first— Whitman falling clumsily onto the shelf, or Aziraphale kissing him. 

The librarian surged forward, burying one hand in Crowley’s hair and the other in the fabric of his shirt, pulling them together. The gesture was swift and warm and needy in a way that their previous entanglements seldom were. There was no slow, languid touches here, but desperation. A deep-seated _want_ that had Crowley keening against Aziraphale’s lips as the man backed him up against the bookshelves. 

Whitman, Crowley felt, would have been utterly scandalized by the whole display.

 _“‘ziraphale,”_ Crowley muttered, sighing as Azirphale reached under his shirt and began ghosting his fingers over his spine. 

Whatever endearment Crowley had conceived of a moment ago dissolved under the hands that held him. Aziraphale’s tongue swept over his bottom lip and took with it the vast majority of the English language. 

Crowley pleaded with him using the only words he could muster: “come ‘ere.”

Historically, Crowley has been the one to initiate intimacy between them. And he took great care to kiss him thoroughly and slow. Through careful exploration he had began to decode the language of Aziraphale and his clever tongue. He learned where tension resided and where there was softness. He learned how to coax sighs and breathy moans from him, whispering affirmations until the doubt in his eyes began to fade.

But this…this was something else entirely.

Being at the centre of Aziraphale’s focus was dizzying. The man’s usual cautious restraint was cast aside as he pressed his lips to Crowley, kissing his mouth, his chin, his jaw, his neck. He pulled back only to help divest Crowley of his shirt, tossing it haphazardly onto the floor.

“How lovely you look,” Aziraphale told him, running a thumb experimentally over Crowley’s exposed hip bone. 

The look in his eyes could melt glaciers.

“’s you,” he said, bending to kiss at the curve of Aziraphale’s neck. “You’re the beautiful one, Angel.”

His words had power. They seemed to trigger something in Aziraphale’s eyes and suddenly that hunger, that bone-deep desire was replaced by something else. 

Gratitude doesn’t seem quite the word, but it’s close. There was a grace to Aziraphale’s features that removed all doubt. He gazed up at Crowley as though he was seeing him for the first time.

He brought their foreheads together with a sigh.

“You alright, Angel?” Crowley asked, threading his fingers through soft curls. “Is it too much?”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, just barely managing to shake his head, no. “Just tell me something,” he said. “Give me something I can hold onto, please.”

What was he supposed to say to _that?_

He settled on the truth— the truest sentence he knew.

“I’m right here, Aziraphale.” He said, squeezing his hand; he closed his eyes, too, in solidarity with Aziraphale so that they might occupy the same darkness. “I don’t know how not to be.”

Crowley thought he heard his name whispered but it might have been the wind. It had been gaining speed all afternoon and now raged against the cottage, rattling the shutters— the only sound in the room that wasn’t heartbeat or breath.

“Come to bed with me?” Aziraphale asked, his eyes still closed.

Crowley nodded, breathing in the tea-leaf scent of old books and their keeper with the steady hands. The man on the beach who described the days spent with him as _‘lovely’_ and read to him as he drove.

The hand in his was a stark contrast to all of the years he’d spent alone, a plot of barren land under construction as a fortress raised itself around his heart. 

Now, he found himself standing on the ramparts with a white flag and a great deal of hope. A hope that Aziraphale would show him mercy. (Adversaries seldom do, but this is life, and real people don’t have castles to guard— just houses with doors that open and hearts that can, too.)

If he’d had a rope, he would lower it now. Aziraphale, he believed, might be the only person remotely capable of climbing walls that high.

In silence he allowed Aziraphale to guide him towards the bed, following his lead as he pulled back the blankets and crawled inside, tossing more than a few throw pillows into a basket on the floor.

He sighed in spite of himself as he burrowed into the plush mattress. It wasn’t until he pulled the blanket around his shoulders that he realized how cold he was without his shirt.

“Come here, darling.” Aziraphale said, gesturing for Crowley to nestle closer.

He went to him gladly, pressing against Aziraphale’s body for warmth. Even through his clothes, Aziraphale was delightfully warm. His collared shirt hung open at the neck, though Crowley had no memory of unbuttoning it. A wisp of pale chest hair poked through the opening and Crowley covered it with his hand, stroking Azirphale’s chest as the man rubbed warmth into his bare shoulders.

“Better?”

“Better,” Crowley confirmed, as though this _wasn’t_ the single greatest moment of his earthly existence.

Because there is no socially acceptable way to to tell someone that you live and die by their hands, Crowley said nothing further.

Instead, he kissed him.

Aziraphale moaned against his lips as Crowley held him, his hands caressing his neck until he shifted, breaking apart to clamber into Aziraphale’s lap. He crouched overtop of him, kissing a trail down his neck and chest as he worked over the buttons.

“Why—” _kiss,_ “—must you only—” _kiss,_ “—wear clothing—” he licked at his chest, “—with a thousand buttons?”

He laughed. “Only to vex you, of course.”

“Of course.”

Aziraphale raised himself up on his forearms, allowing Crowley to work the garment from his shoulders, shedding it entirely. 

“Wow,” he whispered, not knowing where to reach—to touch— first. _“Angel.”_

The sight of Aziraphale shirtless on the bed with his soft skin and gorgeous curves exposed in the lamplight, Crowley felt, was enough to paralyze him with indecision. He struggled in vain to find a superlative strong enough, an endearment sweet enough, to reflect the gift that lay before him. He looked at his outstretched arms and longed to disappear into them. To kneed handfuls of Aziraphale’s skin like bread until the tension released from his shoulders and nothing remained but blissful touch.

In the end, he settled on his collar bone, dragging the tips of his black nails over it until Aziraphale shivered.

Crowley leaned forward again as if to kiss his lips but at the last second he dipped lower, kissing his Adam’s apple and his neck and everything beneath.

By the time he made it to his stomach, kissing and squeezing where he could, Aziraphale was watching him.

“Crowley.”

“Yes?”

“Are you sure that you don’t want me to…” he reached up, his hand toying with the hem of Crowley’s trousers, pulling on them in the form of a question. 

Crowley shook his head. “You first, if that’s alright.”

“Oh.”

He clambered up to meet Aziraphale’s face, bending to place a tender kiss to his swollen lips. “Let me do this for you,” he said, his breathing lust-filled and ragged. “Let me take care of you.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Aziraphale whispered back. 

Crowley said nothing, but began mouthing at Aziraphale’s neck, biting and tasting as he pressed against him. “It is _more_ than fair. You have no idea…”

He kissed him gently as he caressed Aziraphale’s nipple—gently, at first. “You’re doing so well for me, Angel.”

Aziraphale gasped beneath him, his head falling back with his mouth agape. “Oh, _darling,_ the things you do to me…”

And he knew. He could feel Aziraphale’s hardness beneath him as he worked, watching as a red patch appeared on the skin where his lips had been only a moment before. He pulled back until he was positioned on Aziraphale’s rich thighs.

“Do you want me to…?” He ground down with his hips, pressing against his sex.

“Ahh, _Crowley.”_ The way his voice broke over his name is not the sort of thing you can recover from. 

Crowley knows he never will.

“Is this alright, Angel?” He pulled back to examine his face, finding flushed pink cheeks and unfocused eyes. He brushed a curl from his forehead without knowing why. “Tell me, please.”

Aziraphale nodded vigorously, his hand holding fast to Crowley’s neck.

“Are you sure?” Crowley asked, pressing his forehead to Aziraphale’s.

“I am,” Aziraphale vowed. “Just…please, be gentle with me.”

There are some things that shouldn’t have to be spoken but when they are, they overwhelm.

“Of course, Angel. Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.” Crowley pressed a chaste kiss to his lips, hovering there until Aziraphale met his eyes. “Anything.”

“I…just touch me.” He held his gaze. “You have such lovely hands, my dear.”

Crowley nodded, waiting until his lover leaned back fully, ready for him. 

He pulled back, a hand trailing the waistband of Aziraphale’s pants.

“Wait.”

He yanked his hand away immediately. “Yes, Angel?”

“Could you… would it be alright if…?” The look in his eyes said that his sentence would never be finished— not by him.

“…do you want to leave these on?”

He nodded. “If that would be alright.”

“Aziraphale, I’m trying to give you a blank cheque here, alright? That means that I’ll do whatever you want; whatever you need me to.” Gently, he brought a leg over Aziraphale’s torso, straddling him. He leaned over him until their foreheads were touching once more. “I’m yours.”

When he pulled away, there were tears in Aziraphale’s eyes. (He kissed them clear.)

“Ready?”

“Ready,” Aziraphale repeated.

Crowley leaned into him as slowly as he was able. Tortuously, maddeningly slow, rubbing against Aziraphale with his body, relishing the curves of him. The thin cotton layer of Aziraphale’s pants meant that he felt every movement, every pressure. 

His lips parted and from them came the most glorious sounds. Gasps and moans and Crowley’s name, which he couldn’t bear to get to the end of. 

“Crow—Crow…” 

“I know.” 

He kissed him as he rocked against his body, his own cock growing hard and damp in his pants as it pressed against the warm swell of Aziraphale’s stomach. Soon his own mouth was loosening, his throat making sounds he couldn’t bring himself to swallow down.

It made Crowley’s heart race to be this close, this intimate, with the man who called him _darling_ as easily as breathing.

It made him eager to please. To touch him as he deserved to be touched, watching as those blue eyes opened and shut with pleasure, satisfied that he was the one to give it to him. 

He covered Aziraphale’s bulge with his hand and he was overcome. His head fell back in bliss, his lips parting to form a gentle ‘o.’

“Can you come like this?” Crowley asked, his breath ghosting over Aziraphale’s neck.

The man only nodded, looking down to meet Crowley’s wide eyes. 

God, he was beautiful like this. So soft and touch-drunk and affectionate. Even as Crowley rocked against him, pressing him into the mattress with his own body, the man’s grip on him was unwavering. Fingers tangled in his hair and eyes met his in a series of devastating looks. As he watched Aziraphale come apart for him (and God, what a sight that was), Aziraphale was staring back at him. It almost hurt to share a moment this gentle— to clasp onto a body that held him so passionately. Even in calmer moments when the only thing he did was exist, he knew he would still be held. Aziraphale and his constancy had yet to fail him.

It’s a dizzying thing for a free-faller to suddenly find a parachute on his back.

Or solid ground beneath him.

Crowley ground down on his hips and Aziraphale’s back arched on the mattress, taking Crowley with it. In a wave of heat their lips collided, Crowley deepening the kiss as his hand dragged over his neck, his chest, and settled on the curve of his ass. Aziraphale broke the kiss with a moan as Crowley held him, rocking into him once more with a steady rhythm. 

The sounds he made, he knew, would haunt him forever. Delicate little _ohs_ and _ahs_ that deepened as Crowley worked him over with kisses and hands. 

_“Crowley,”_ he moaned, a hand bunching the fabric of Crowley’s trousers. “I think…”

—He kissed his neck— “Yes?”

“I’m going to…”

 _“Yes,_ Angel. Yes, I know.”

Truth be told, he wasn’t too far behind. There was a deep-seated warmth in his stomach that drove him on, threatening to spill over entirely. The edge was a great cliff and he was more than willing to dive.

Crowley quickened his pace, his hips rocking into Aziraphale’s warm body until he could take it no longer.

“Crowley! Oh…” Aziraphale’s head flung back helplessly as his orgasm took hold. His spine arched with pleasure and his hand fell from its perch on Crowley’s hipbone as he writhed beneath him, gasping his name.

Crowley seized his hand as it fell, entwining their fingers together as he leaned into him, keeping his steady rhythm as Aziraphale’s body trembled beneath his own.

“That’s it, Angel.” He slowed his movements as Aziraphale’s body began to slacken, kissing him through the aftershocks of his pleasure. He pulled away only to lay down next to him, soothing his lover with the slow movement of his hand on his chest.

“You’re brilliant, you know that?”

Aziraphale hummed in response, his breaths evening out as he muttered an exhausted _“come here.”_

The look on his face could stop time. 

Crowley looked up to find blue eyes crinkled at the corners and a smile so lopsided and luminous that it stopped his heart for just a moment. It made Crowley want to do it all again, or else, to get down on his knees and take Aziraphale like the sacrament that he was. 

And afterwards he would be pure, consisting only of light and beauty and warmth.

And love.

 _Holy shit._ Crowley’s heart pounded in his chest for an entirely new reason. _I could love him._

_I may love him even now._

_“Crowley.”_

“Yes, Angel?”

He grinned, his face half-buried in his pillow case.“Hi.”

“Hi.” He closed his eyes and took a breath, forcing the raw edge from his voice as he spoke. “How do you feel?”

“Perfectly happy.” He surged forward, enveloping his lips in a kiss as his hand fell to Crowley’s waist. “Now, I believe it is your turn…”

Crowley’s eyes fluttered between wakefulness and sleep, lingering at the edge of the night. Rain fell softly against closed windows— the world outside a dim and permanent place while the inside of the cottage shone in lamplit afterglow. The blankets on the bed were soft and so was his partner. Light and shadows mingled in the room while they held one another; it was like a Van Gogh melting in the hot sun, the colours mingling on the canvas.

His joy was making him senseless.

Aziraphale watched him patiently, tracing his index finger over Crowley’s shoulder until he emerged from the shelter of his thoughts. “What are you thinking about, Crowley?”

He shrugged, blinking back at him. _That I should have been looking for you this whole time— the years before I first heard your name were wasted. I wish that I could have them back; I’d devote them to you so that we could get here all the sooner. If only I’d known…_

_I could have come home years ago._

“I’m just happy.”

“I’m glad,” he whispered, his fingers falling from Crowley’s shoulder to trace over the sharp bend of his nose.

The feather-light touch of it made Crowley gasp. “What are you doing?”

“Appreciating you.” He said, his hand now tracing over jaw and chin. “You have very striking features, you know. You remind me of a silent film star.”

Aziraphale had expected him to scoff at the comment, but he said nothing, his eyes falling to the pillow beneath him. 

“What? I know that look— who do I remind you of?”

Crowley spoke slowly— no, _seriously_ — as though choosing his words with a gloved hand. “You remind me of my mother.”

“Oh.” His hand stilled on Crowley’s face, waiting for an explanation.

“I mean, you don’t look like her. Not at all. But you still remind me of her.”

“What is she like?”

 _“Was,_ Angel. She died.”

“Oh, I am so sorry, Crowley.” Tears sprang to his eyes as he cradled Crowley’s face in his hand. “What was she like?”

He considered it a moment, his dark pupils darting about in search of unseen things. “She was kind,” he said at last. “And clever. And witty enough to change the tone of the room she was in.”

“She sounds like a real _tour de force.”_

“She was.” He mumbled, momentarily forgetting how to smile. “Her name was Agatha.”

“Agatha,” echoed Aziraphale.

“I wish you could have met her before she…”

“…before she died?”

“Yeah.”

He stroked Crowley’s cheek with his thumb, not knowing what else to do. “I am so sorry, Crowley. She sounds wonderful.”

“She was. She was the bravest person I knew,” he leaned into the curve of Aziraphale’s hand, “until you.”

Aziraphale frowned. “I’m sure that she was a great deal braver than I am, darling. I’m not sure I’ve even been called that word before.”

“You’re plenty brave, Aziraphale.” He nestled closer and Aziraphale opened his arms for him, allowing Crowley to lay on his chest, his feet caught up and tangled with his own. “To have lived your life and still be this kind? That’s a miracle.”

Aziraphale was quiet for a long moment. Crowley wondered if he’d fallen asleep until his hand returned to its task of carding through Crowley’s messy hair.

“I don’t know about that,” he breathed.

“Well that’s because you’re an idiot.”

Aziraphale squeezed him tighter. “Thank you for that ringing endorsement.”

“It’s alright,” Crowley informed him. “You’re the cleverest idiot I know.”

……

Aziraphale was the first to awake the next morning— a blessing that he will treasure faithfully.

You see, he knew Crowley to be a creature of movement. In the day, his fingers tapped every available surface, his eyes coursed over his surroundings in constant search, and his feet never rested for long. But the haze of sleep suspended his movements until all that was left was the rise and fall of his chest and the warmth of his good heart.

Aziraphale treasured his closed eyes and fluttering lashes almost as much as he longed to see them open, whether blown wide as they had been the night before, or more subtle, watching him with the muted intelligence he knew so well.

The only thing worth doing now, he decided, was to wake him with his lips. (It’s what he would want if the roles had been reversed.)

He placed a tender kiss upon his lips, nudging Crowley’s nose with his own. “Good morning.”

Crowley answered with a put-upon groan, his legs curling towards him in a full-bodied frown. 

“I take it this means that you won’t be getting up anytime soon?”

Crowley nodded against the pillow.

Grateful for his answer, Aziraphale gleefully retrieved his phone from the nightstand and opened the music app.

The Russian National anthem, Aziraphale feels, is a widely under-appreciated tune, particularly in the U.K. That may be because (as he’s been informed several times in the past) the average citizen does not have a working knowledge of Russian. This, he feels strongly, is no excuse for lack of taste. He likes their strong voices— the powerful swell as they join together. 

It is also a hilariously unexpected thing to hear upon waking.

He placed his phone next to Crowley on the bed and pressed play.

Crowley sniffed in his sleep, swatting at the pillow in front of him.

Aziraphale turned the volume up as high as it would go.

“Hngk.” Crowley moaned, his eyes blinking awake. “What is— why?” He buried his face in his hands before grabbing Aziraphale’s pillow as a shield. 

Aziraphale beamed proudly as he returned his phone to an acceptable volume. “It’s the Russian national anthem, my dear.”

“What is wrong with you?” He asked, trying and failing to muffle his smile. “It’s not even 8am.”

Aziraphale sat up next to him, running a hand through his hair as he replied. “I know darling, but I have to leave soon; I told Anathema I’d be opening for her today, remember?”

“Call in sick,” said Crowley, without an ounce of sympathy. “And stay with _me.”_

Aziraphale leaned over him, bracketing Crowley’s body with his arms as he kissed him. Crowley reached up to meet him, his arms draped over Aziraphale’s shoulders in an attempt to pull him back down.

And it would have been easy, Aziraphale knew, to lay down next him. To say _‘to hell with the world,’_ and kiss Crowley senseless on his blue bedsheets. He could pry the tiredness from his bones with tenderness, mapping the path of his skin with lips and hands. He could make love to him here, until Pleasure became their god— the only one they knew how to worship with any sincerity.

Crowley nibbled on his lip and Aziraphale nearly broke. 

But mornings can’t last forever.

“I’m needed, Crowley.”

“The bookworms can wait.”

“You have to go to work as well, darling. The Bentley isn’t going to return itself.”

He sighed, disappointed. “I hate mornings.”

“Chin up,” Aziraphale said, bending to kiss his temple; “there will be other moments like this one.”

The street outside of the Tadfield Library was still barren when they pulled up, Crowley stalling the Bentley while Aziraphale scavenged through his satchel for the keys Anathema had given him. 

Typically, it would be Anathema on the early shift, but Aziraphale had formed the habit of covering for her on and off whenever she needed some time to herself.

Given her new haircut and the renewed strut she’d exhibited over the past week, there was no doubt in Aziraphale’s mind that Anathema’s request had something to do with the young computer tech.

These sweet days held something for everyone, it seemed.

“You have everything?” Crowley asked. When Aziraphale nodded, he handed him his coffee.

“Thank you again, Crowley. For everything.”

“My pleasure, Angel. Literally.”

He looked up at the looming library but made no motion to leave, his hand still gripping the door handle firmly.

“I was also wondering whether you’ll be free this evening? You know, after work?” Crowley asked.

“My, you are persistent, aren’t you?”

Crowley blushed. “I was thinking that I could make you dinner. Come by my apartment after work?”

“That would be lovely.” He leaned over the armrest, pressing a kiss to Crowley’s lips before leaving the safety of the car. “See you tonight.”

The Bentley remained in front of the library for some time, only driving off after the lights inside flicked on, signalling Aziraphale’s arrival.

Although he was seldom present so early in the day, Aziraphale loved opening the library. 

“Hello,” he muttered as he passed the first stacks. “Good morning.”

There is a peace between pages that cannot survive in the outside world. You have to find it the old fashioned way by holding it in your hands and allowing it to guide you.

To the right person, the mere existence of a book is an invitation; one which Aziraphale has never learned to turn down.

He starts up the computer at the Front Desk— the old one, not the new one Newt drew sparks from the day before— then moves on to the windows. He opens the blinds, letting the light in. Next, the doors.

No one is waiting outside today and he is grateful. No one to ask questions or prattle on when he’d rather be alone with the books (which is always). He can let his happiness swell here. Until Anathema comes in at noon, he doesn’t have to hide the joy that’s been bursting in his chest for hours, ever since he took Crowley to his bed and pulled his own name from his lips.

Oh, he would be thinking of that sound for such a long time.

In Crowley’s honour, he begins with the poetry, taking a stack of anthologies to return to their proper home.

His one task becomes two as he begins returning books and putting others on a vacant cart in the off chance that Crowley may be interested in reading them.

He hopes he will.

 _‘Sentimentalist,’_ Crowley will say, already flipping through the index. _‘What am I going to do with you?’_

A smile graces his lips as he flips through Ocean Vuong, unwilling to set his words down just yet.

“Hello, Aziraphale.”

There is a shadow behind him; the voice is not in his mind.

The book tumbles from his hands as he turns. It collapses onto the floor with pages splayed like limbs; an Ocean between them.

“Hello Gabriel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3 things:
> 
> 1) Madam Tracy is an Icon and deserves only the best  
> 2) I am so proud of Aziraphale and his progress!!!  
> 3) I'M SORRY FOR THE ENDING (I mean, I'm not, because I'm a sucker for drama, but still 😅) 
> 
> Thanks everyone for the comments! Y'all are the greatest 🤗


	10. Aziraphale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for anxiety and mentions of a past abusive relationship 💜

Trauma sends you letters,  
Without warning,  
For the rest of your life,  
Usually disguised as something else.

Brenna Twohy

Aziraphale knows how to time travel. It is a skill that he comes by honestly; there was no tutorial at the local university for him to take or a witches’ potion handed to him in a fortune teller’s shop. There is no way to learn this skill because it cannot be taught. The strings tied to us are constantly changing; you cannot learn which ones to pluck and which ones to cut in order to serve you better. 

Most of the time, Life plucks our strings before we even get the chance.

There are three essential components required to experience time travel:

1) You must have a memory. This seems simple, but it isn’t. Your memory must be strong— perhaps even stronger than your ability to suppress it. When Aziraphale can’t sleep at night, he pulls up his favourite Shakespeare passages on his phone and memorizes them. When he rode in an ambulance for what turned out to be nothing more serious than a panic attack, he created his own timeline of Classical Greek history and taught himself to recite it backwards and forwards. Memory is key.

2) You must be privy to at least a little tragedy. (Aziraphale doubts that any tragedy can be truly ‘little,’ but that’s an argument for another time.) If we are to interpret ‘little tragedies’ as being ‘small’ due to their frequency rather than their unimportance, then it may be said that we all bear little tragedies within us. But in order to time travel they must feel heavy. Heavy enough that memory falls into them like a truck driving along an uneven road. Potholes are a part of life and cannot be avoided simply by sitting in the passenger seat.

3) You must keep on living. You must take your memory and your little tragedies in a suitcase as you hit the road to somewhere else. Somedays, they will feel heavy. Other times, you will forget the suitcase under the bed and you will live as untragic people do. (These will be your luckiest days that you will never remember.) 

And when all three elements come together— when you’re busy living your untragic life and a word or an image drags you like a pothole from your course, memory will do the rest. One moment you’re in a library; the next, a house with linoleum floors and a broken-handled pot. 

To a flightless bird, all cages look the same.

Time travel, then, is not a skill but a phenomenon experienced only by accident. And Aziraphale has made so many mistakes.

Like coming to work early instead of staying in bed with Crowley.

And dropping a book at the sound of an enemy, thereby reminding him of the power carried in his voice.

Aziraphale forced himself to focus on the man in front of him— the suit, the angled jaw, the eyes— instead of the past he represents. (It is difficult for a historian to see anything but the past.)

“Aren’t you going to pick that up?”

Aziraphale forced himself to look away from Gabriel’s smug expression just long enough to retrieve the book. He’d intended to deposit it onto the cart with the others but held onto it instead. His own silent ally.

Gabriel ignored his action entirely. Instead, he set to the task of adjusting his cuffs and smoothing out the pristine white collar of his shirt, acting as though Aziraphale were not vibrating with anxiety in front of him. A classic technique of misdirection that Aziraphale recognized immediately.

His eyes flew towards the exits. They were unlocked, but to his knowledge the only one who’d entered was standing right in front of him.

He had to face Gabriel alone.

“Well,” the man said, shooting his cuffs. “I see your diet didn’t take.”

Aziraphale hardened his jaw, refusing to give him an ounce of satisfaction. “What do you want, Gabriel?”

The man grinned back at him, his features momentarily obscured by the pseudo-smile that his law professors no doubt adored him for. 

You could disappear behind a face like that. 

“I thought that we could go somewhere and talk. In private.”

He glanced at the clock— 10:15. _Where was Anathema?_

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Gabriel chuckled— lightly at first, but gaining speed. “You’ve really changed your tune, haven’t you? Very… _feisty._ I like it.”

Gabriel took a step forward and Aziraphale matched it with his retreat. The hard row of shelves pressed against his spine as he backed into them. Muscle memory informed him that there were some copies of Dickens nearby. The old black tomes were very heavy and Aziraphale felt instinctively that the man who gave birth to Ebenezer Scrooge in prose would be alright with him wielding his masterpieces against another villain.

“Don’t.” He choked out, a hand between them.

Gabriel blinked. “Don’t what?”

A chill ran down Aziraphale’s spine but his limbs were marble, his body yielding to that ancient instinct that preferred to play dead than fight against impossible odds. “I don’t want to see you, Gabriel.”

“You’ll want to hear what I have to tell you.”

“I really don’t.”

“Even if it concerns Crowley?”

“Crowley?” He blinked. “What about Crowley?”

His ears began to ring. _How did Gabriel know about Crowley? Had he been watching Aziraphale this whole time?_ If he had, then that meant that Crowley was now on his radar as well.

He fixed his eyes squarely on Gabriel; Crowley’s name had no place in his mouth.

“Ah,” he smirked. “That got your attention.”

Aziraphale tossed his book on the pile and grabbed the handle of the cart, steadying himself. “I have things to do, Gabriel.”

“I just think it’s interesting that you seem to have a type.”

“Crowley is nothing like you.” (The _‘how dare you?’_ was implied.)

“I beg to differ.”

He reached into his leather briefcase and retrieved a manilla envelope. He laid out its contents on top of the cart for Aziraphale to read, exposing a large stack of papers and photographs neatly pinned and clipped into place. It resembled a prop from a bad television show, all pen marks and conspiracy.  
“He’s not who you think he is, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale refused to look. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“But you should.” He grabbed Aziraphale’s wrist as he turned away. “You know that I care about you, in my own way.”

 _Inhale,_ he told himself. _Breathe in, breathe out. You’re not really here and neither is he._

“Let. Go of me.”

Gabriel nodded before releasing his wrist. “He’s been around; your man. Arrested twice for assault and battery. The charges were dropped but it’s all there in black and white. I even threw in the photos— thought you’d appreciate that little detail. And then there’s the dead mother to contend with.”

Aziraphale’s eyes burned with recognition.

“Ah, so you do know some things then, don’t you?”

This must be what it feels like to be subject to a post-mortem. A man in a suit leering over you with a file folder and words as sharp as knives, dissecting you. Aziraphale watched the action from somewhere overhead, bereft of his body, as Gabriel laid out everything he knew and everything he didn’t for analysis.

He pictured a scientist in a lab coat and a plastic smile. _‘And if you look here, you can see the bruising around the heart. The organ must have incurred considerable trauma while it was still inside the body…’_

He asked no questions but still Gabriel answered him.

“His own father believes that he killed her.”

The floor below Aziraphale’s feet seemed to shift but he knew it must be him. “How do you know all this?”

“Really?” He scoffed. “I come in here and tell you that your boyfriend might be a murderer and that’s what you ask me? My, you really are in denial, aren’t you?”

Aziraphale said nothing; the lump in his throat wouldn’t let him.

“It’s Lou, if you must know.” He gloated, leaning back on his heels. “He owed me a favour, so I called him up at the station; told him that I had a suspicion about a local character.”

“You had no right.” He said.

“Oh, I had _every_ right, Aziraphale.”

He stepped closer. He was near enough to touch but he made no such advance— it was enough to be this close, showing Aziraphale the strength of his resolve. His _restraint._

“Because you need to realize something. One day, you’re going to wake up and you’re going to see that no one else will be able to love you as I do. And when you think of me, it will be with fondness, because I’m the best you’re ever going to get, sweetheart.”

Aziraphale flinched as he pulled abruptly away.

Gabriel gestured to the paperwork as he slinked towards the door. “It may also help your good opinion of me to remember that I, unlike your boyfriend, have never stolen a Bentley. Think about it.”

The Bentley. _How did Gabriel know about the Bentley?_

Aziraphale felt like he was going to be sick.

He waited for the sound of the fire doors to close before he started breathing again. From the pages in front of him, a younger Crowley stared up at him, scarless and with eyes as dark as ink.

Crowley, as it happens, was across town, experiencing a nightmare of his own.

It had begun with his boss chewing him out over borrowing the Bentley. More specifically, he threatened to fire Crowley should he make another “careless” error in the future.

It took a great deal of restraint for him to keep from informing Kenny that actually, there had been nothing careless about it— he had taken excellent care of the Bentley, all the way to Folkestone.

Then came the text message: _Crowley, this is Anathema. Come to the library, now. Aziraphale needs you._

A few seconds later: _Gabriel was here._

All of this had led to him cursing through his bike helmet as he raced in the direction of the Tadfield Library. He flew past street signs and people, the sleepy town not awake enough to grasp the full horror of his situation. 

For the entire duration of the journey, Crowley’s mind replayed on an endless loop Aziraphale’s confession:

_‘I… I was in something of a bad relationship, in the past.’_

_‘It was only after he started getting violent that Anathema asked me if something was wrong.’_

The _one_ day Crowley hadn’t walked in with him there had been a lion waiting at the door.

There was only one thing he knew with any certainty— Gabriel was a dead man walking.

As he skidded into the parking space outside the Tadfield Library, he spotted Anathema at the top of the stairs. It had begun to flurry and it caught in her hair as she paced back and forth, her arms closed in front of her for warmth. Her expression and her heels looked strong enough to cut.

“Is Aziraphale alright?” He called out.

“He’s fine,” she responded. “Crowley—”

“—Where the fuck is he?” Crowley roared, taking the steps two at a time.

He misplaced his foot on the fifth step and crashed onto the palms of his hands. He cursed as he righted himself, punching the concrete step for good measure as he hefted himself up.

“Are you—”

“Fine,” he said, already making to push past her on the landing.

“Crowley!” She grabbed onto his arm, tugging him back. “Crowley, I need you to calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Anathema— I’ll fucking kill him!”

“This!” She cried. “This is exactly what Aziraphale doesn’t need right now!”

He looked past her, through the library window. “Is Gabriel still here?”

“No. No, he was gone when I arrived.”

“This is unbelievable. I hope you called the police on him— he shouldn’t be anywhere near Aziraphale.”

“Crowley, listen to me, because I’m only going to say this once.” Her voice was even, though her hand shook slightly as she grasped Crowley by the arm. “Your anger does not help Aziraphale.”

“But—”

“Listen to me. There is no situation in which you can win against Gabriel; you just can’t. He’s almost finished with law school and then he’ll be a practicing lawyer. And in the meantime, he has plenty of friends on the force.”

Crowley backed away from her, running a hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ.”

“Precisely. So you saying unhelpful things about going after Gabriel— that’ll only stress Aziraphale out more and he does _not_ need to be worrying about you on top of everything else. Got it?”

Crowley nodded, the fire in his veins dulling into something heavier; an outrage that settled just beneath the skin. 

His anger would have to wait.

“Can I see him now?”

______________________________________________________________________________

Blue dress shoes.

Gabriel had been wearing blue dress shoes.

They were his least favourite pair; a gift from Aziraphale on the eve of his 35th birthday. He had also worn them the night that he—

No, don’t think about it. It’s just another pothole.

Aziraphale paced the length of the staff room and sat back down. He unbuttoned his sweater and buttoned it back up again, listening for the familiar sound of Anathema’s shoes clicking in the hall as she barred entrance to the staff room where he now sat. 

He should probably talk to her. She’d looked terrified when she found him, running in with her phone in her hand, still open to their texts. She looked as though she was going to cry as she reminded him that he was not in a house with linoleum floors but a library filled with books and windows and light. She brought him back to himself and he couldn’t even tell her what had happened. 

He didn’t have the heart to tell her what had happened. To tell her that she had been right to be suspicious of Crowley. That he had a past that Azirphale had only come to know through the machinations of the one person he most wishes he’d never met.

The photographs haunted him the most. Black and white stills of Crowley, young and fierce with a face full of fire. What had he done to get him in that position? And did it _matter?_

Aziraphale had lost two years to loving a violent man; the prospect of continuing the pattern was enough to break him.

And even with a head full of suspicion and doubt, Aziraphale was weak. Because when Anathema had knelt beside him and asked what she should do, he could only bring himself to ask for two things: privacy, and Crowley.

“Angel.”

Aziraphale looked up to see the door to the staff room flung open as Crowley rushed towards him. His long legs stumbled into the room clumsily and it was only a moment before Aziraphale felt a pair of arms wrap tightly around him.

“You’re alright, Angel. Come here, you’re alright.” 

He let Crowley envelop him in a hug, his own arms heavy and limp on the table. 

His eyes fell to his satchel on the chair next to him. An envelope crease poked out of the bag, beckoning to him like a white flag. Crowley’s story was only inches away and he itched to grab onto it, to present it to Crowley in silence and wait for his rebuttal.

But then he might lie. And Crowley turning out to be a liar was the one thing Aziraphale feared more than Gabriel. The possibility that the person who held him in the night and told him he was beautiful might be a fraud. A fake. And then everything else he’d said to him would be tainted, too.

He missed his ignorance. He missed who he was that morning, sipping coffee and kissing his lover goodbye.

Crowley knelt down before him on the floor, his hand squeezing Aziraphale’s like a tether. His hair was disheveled and his strained expression made him appear older than he was. There were lines around his eyes that Azirphale wanted to smooth with his fingers.

 _‘Poor old Aziraphale,’_ the voice remarked, _‘loving the bad ones even when he doesn’t want to.’_

When Crowley spoke again, it came out like a plea. “What do you want to do?”

Aziraphale replied with the only thought that came to mind: “Take me home, Crowley. I just want to go home.”

______________________________________________________________________________

Crowley was overjoyed to find out that Aziraphale had used the word ‘home’ in reference to his apartment. It would be easier this way, he believed. His flat was much closer to the shop and Anathema could easily walk to and from on her lunch break to check in on him.

Most importantly, he would be able to keep a closer eye on Aziraphale. The sight of him in that office— staring at nothing beside a cup of cold tea— was heartbreaking. He didn’t deserve to bear this burden on his own, and Crowley was not about to let him.

They had never spoken in concrete terms about this burgeoning _thing_ between them. It felt too trivial to attribute a name to the orbital patterns they had created around one another. Crowley had thought about it, though. He’d thought about calling him up or visiting the cottage late at night with a panicked expression and a question on his lips. He wanted to go to dinners with Aziraphale, to meet his friends, bring him flowers, and go on dates and live like happy people do. Because the truth of the matter is, he’d been feeling happy lately, and he felt that it needed a name.

They needed to name it.

But now, with Aziraphale’s world a strained and anxious mess, he knew what he had to do. He had to _show_ him instead. Whatever it was that Aziraphale needed, Crowley was determined to give it to him. Already there had been so many moments between them when Aziraphale smiled at him and he felt the words _‘thank you’_ push up into his mouth, like the sight was gift, somehow. For all of the times he had felt grateful for the looks he gave, he would repay him. He would take care of him until the darkness was gone from his face once more and then, if all else fails, then he would bring him flowers.

He would do just about anything to see those glorious smiles again.

And Crowley hated the dull haze of Aziraphale’s powder blue eyes almost as much as he hated the man who’d darkened them. Gabriel would pay for this. Crowley didn’t know how or when, but he would. For taking the light from Aziraphale’s eyes and making it so hard to find, he would suffer.

He would find a way to make him suffer.

Anathema walked them to the doors and Crowley felt a tremendous swell of emotion as she reached for Aziraphale’s hand. For better or worse, Anathema and Crowley were bonded by an unbreakable pact: neither of them would leave Aziraphale to deal with this on his own.

“Text me, Aziraphale. I will be expecting updates.” Anathema wrapped her arms around him as they reached the door, Crowley guiding Aziraphale with a hand on his side. “Now go on, take care of yourself. Get some popcorn and watch some Queer Eye— not the sad ones, either. Start with Mama Tammy.”

“Will do.” Aziraphale smiled weakly as he hugged her. “I’m alright, Anathema. Really.”

She ignored him completely. “I’ll stop by around dinnertime when I get my break, alright? So be ready for me.”

Aziraphale only nodded, his eyes still clouded over.

The woman waited on the stairs until the bike pulled away, looking up and down the street in search of the culprit.

Crowley hoped she would find Gabriel, he really did.

He wouldn’t be able to survive her if she did.

______________________________________________________________________________

As Aziraphale saw it, he had two options: He could confront Crowley with the truth, revealing that he had read the file and thereby violated his trust, or he could say nothing, and allow the quicksand feeling in his chest to swallow him whole.

It made it even worse that Crowley was being so nice to him. He’d left work early to take him home and once they got there he sprang into action. He dragged the pile of blankets from the couch into the bedroom, essentially forming a fortress of pillows and blankets atop the bed. He set up his laptop on the side table with the Netflix screen loaded and already had the kettle on to make tea.

All of this while Aziraphale stood in the centre of the room, not quite sure where to put his hands. 

_‘Don’t just stand there, Aziraphale.’_ His inner voice chided him. _‘Are you really going to let this man take care of you even though you know who he is?’_

The thing is, Aziraphale wasn’t quite certain he _did_ know who Crowley was. The sweet man who made him tea and bickered with him over poetry seemed incongruous with the violence attested in the folder. Perhaps Gabriel had got it wrong— perhaps he had faked the whole thing in an act of sabotage.

He quickly abandoned that line of thought. Gabriel was exact in everything he did; he didn’t need to invent stories to get what he wanted. No, his lies were always small; a gentle exaggeration of the truth wielded to his advantage.

All of this meant that Crowley was not the sort of man Aziraphale had thought him to be and that terrified him.

“Tea’s almost ready.”

Aziraphale only nodded, watching as Crowley poured a steaming cup and slid it to him across the countertop.

When he did not accept it, Crowley came around to Aziraphale’s side. He reached out to touch his arm but Aziraphale withdrew, yanking his hand away sadly.

“Just tell me what you need,” Crowley whispered, his hands plunging awkwardly into his pockets. “Please just tell me what to do.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, his finger tracing the edge of the mug. “There’s really nothing you can do, I’m afraid.”

“Bullshit, there’s always something.” 

That’s when Aziraphale caught sight of his hand, the delicate curve of it swollen and misshapen.

“My goodness!” Aziraphale said, pointing. “You’re hurt!”

Crowley looked down in surprise as though he were seeing it for the first time. “Oh, it’s nothing, Angel. Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s swelling.”

“It’ll stop soon.”

Aziraphale was not appeased. He padded towards the kitchen and returned with a bag of frozen peas. He placed it on Crowley’s scraped and swollen knuckles wordlessly.

“Uh, thanks.” Crowley cleared his throat. “Although…I think that I’m supposed to be the one taking care of you, not the other way around.”

Azirphale shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

He’d done it enough times for Gabriel in the past. Whenever he came home from the gym or from work with swollen knuckles and the phrase ‘you should see the other guy’ ready on his tongue.

He’d even done it once when _he_ had been the Other Guy.

Oops. Another pothole.

“Listen, Crowley…Gabriel…” he took a deep breath. “Gabriel knows about the Bentley. That you borrowed it, I mean.”

“Jesus Christ.” His lips curved into a snarl but he did not move from the table, his hand still trapped under the bag of frozen peas.

“I know,” said Aziraphale, miserably. “Do you think that we ought to have a plan in place, in the event that he tells anyone…”

“No… it should be fine, Angel.” He paused, mulling it over. “I mean, my boss was pissed, but he’s the only one who knows and he doesn’t seem keen on reporting me.”

“Good.” He sighed. “That’s good.”

He stared at the frozen bag, adjusting it and reading the words to himself until he felt brave enough to speak again. “Crowley, I am so sorry that I dragged you into this.”

“No,” he said firmly, “you’ve dragged me into nothing, ‘ziraphale, do you hear me? Nothing.”

“And I know that you’re angry,” he pressed on, forcing his voice not to crack, “but you must promise me that you’ll leave it alone. That you won’t go after Gabriel for this. You don’t under—”

“—I know, Angel. Anathema filled me in.” With his good hand he pulled Aziraphale’s hand from the counter, covering it. “I’m more concerned about you, right now. What did he say to you to make you so upset? Was it just about the Bentley?”

The ringing in his ears returned and he was speechless. Crowley’s well-timed mercy was potent; his kindness broke whatever barrier existed between Aziraphale and his heart. Without making any motion to move, tears streamed down Aziraphale’s face as he wept, silently. 

Clearly he’d had practice.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. You’re doing great.” He pulled him into a hug, rubbing his back as Aziraphale stood there with his arms at his sides. Wherever he was, it wasn’t here.

Crowley held him until his breathing evened out and he pulled away, his face streaked and wet.

“We’re going to get through this, yeah?”

Aziraphale wanted to nod but found that he couldn’t. “I think I’d like to lay down now, if that’s alright.”

“Of course, Angel. Come on.”

Crowley ushered him into the bedroom and began his preparations. He handed Aziraphale the same pair of pyjamas he’d worn those weeks ago, the night he’d slept on the couch. It warmed his heart a moment to see the same pair folded and neatly set aside as though they were waiting for him.

Crowley pulled the blankets back on the bed in one fell swoop and disappeared down the hallway only to return a moment later with a copy of Rilke for good measure. 

He helped Aziraphale into bed and once he was comfortable he took a seat at the end of it.

“Look, Angel…” he sighed, running a hand across his tired face. “I’m sort of in a bit of trouble at work.”

Aziraphale went white. “Because of the Bentley?”

“Mostly. I’ve kind of been on thin ice, lately. My boss is just being more of an asshole than usual and he wants me back by noon…I think I really have to go, I’m so sorry.”

“And here I am making it worse. I’m so sorry you had to leave because of me.”

“I’m not,” he said firmly, giving Azirphale’s ankle a squeeze through the quilted blanket. “There is no world in which I would not come and get you when you call.”

He paused, hand still holding Aziraphale’s ankle through the quilted blanket. His guilt was making him slow. “Will you be alright here on your own? It won’t be for long.”

“Yes, of course.”

Crowley did not look convinced. “Anathema is going to check in on you later and I’ve asked my friend Bee to come by with some food later so you don’t have to worry about cooking. I’ll leave work as soon as I can and I’ll swing by your place on the way to get your things, alright?”

“Alright.” 

He stood to leave, lingering in the doorway. “We’re going to get through this, Angel. I know we are.”

Aziraphale watched as he turned and strode out the door, berating himself for wishing that this particular liar would stay with him a little longer.

Crowley was right— Aziraphale would not be left alone for long.

Bee arrived about an hour later with a couple take-out boxes containing a burger, fries, and a piece of devil’s food. He announced his arrival with a text message that read: _Food is at the door. Text me at this number if you need anything. - B_

Followed by: _I have diplomatic immunity in 58 countries— say the word and your ex will disappear._

He screen-shotted that last one, feeling a swell of appreciation for the shadowy figure he’d once spotted at the bar.

Anathema came soon after, bearing the gift of iced coffee. Interesting, isn’t it, how we offer food in times of crisis? How your world can shift on its axis but your body still needs to eat. Life goes on even when you wish it wouldn’t.

As much as Aziraphale adored her, Anathema was a talker. She didn’t take kindly to his silences as they watched television, marathoning whatever television series they could get their hands on. Mindless television provided unhelpful background noise to Aziraphale’s inner crisis as he thought himself deeper and deeper with each click of the ‘next episode’ button.

By the time Crowley returned home it was already dark outside. He entered the flat proudly toting a backpack of Aziraphale’s personal belongings.

“What did you tell Tracy?” Aziraphale asked.

He shrugged. “Not much. Told her that you had a visitor and that you’d be staying with friends for a few days.”

“And what did she say to that?”

“I believe her exact words were: ‘I know, dear. I’m a psychic on weekends.’”

“Wow.”

“How can you be a _casual_ psychic?” Anathema marvelled.

Crowley shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea.”

She chewed at her lip for a moment, probably in an attempt to deduce her astrological sign from sarcasm alone. “That woman is my hero.”

Aziraphale accepted his bag from Crowley gladly, taking it into the bedroom to change into his night clothes. It warmed his heart to find a copy of Whitman tucked carefully among his sweaters, pyjamas, and toothbrush.

He dressed quickly, trying to ignore the bits of conversation that drifted down the hall.

“How is he?” asked Crowley.

“Well, he’s _Aziraphale,_ so of course it’s incredibly hard to tell, but I think he’s handling it pretty well considering.”

“He’s hardly said a word all day.” Said Crowley.

“That’s him, I’m afraid. He kind of goes into himself when this stuff happens.”

Crowley’s voice lowered still more. “Has Gabriel ever tried something like this before?”

“No. He’s seen him in public places, but he’s never tried talking to Aziraphale since it all went down.”

“I wonder why he’s back now,” Crowley mused. “Why now after all this time?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed, slumping against the counter.

“I just wish I knew what to do.” Said Crowley. “I feel lost, here.”

“You’re doing great. I think he just needs some company,” she said. “I told him he’s welcome to come to mine as well, if he wants a change of pace or if you two need some space.”

“Thanks, Anathema. It’s fine, but…thanks for offering.”

In the next room, Aziraphale felt unbearably small. He waited for the voices to stop before emerging from the bedroom in his pyjamas. 

He took a seat at the counter as Crowley watched him.

“Did Anathema leave?” He asked.

“She’ll be back; she just ran down to the coffee shop before they close.”

“Oh.”

“You ok?”

“I wish everyone would stop asking me that.”

“Right.” He nodded. “Sorry.”

“I think I’m ready to tell you what Gabriel said,” Aziraphale muttered, staring at his hands closed in front of him. “I should have said something earlier, but…I needed time to think things over.”

Crowley approached slowly, taking a seat next to Aziraphale. He did his best to ignore Aziraphale’s wince as he drew closer. 

“It’s alright, Angel. I wasn’t going to push you into…”

“Well, perhaps you should have.”

He blinked in surprise. “‘Beg your pardon?”

“Shouldn’t we talk about things more? Sometimes I feel like we don’t know anything about one another.”

Crowley’s back stiffened where he sat, realization sinking in. “What did he tell you about me, Aziraphale?”

“How do you know—”

“—Because last night with you was incredible and now you’re acting…”

“What?” 

_Crazy? Manic? Psychotic?_ Aziraphale had heard them all.

 _“Upset,”_ he said. “Hesitant. Like maybe you don’t trust me.” He cleared his throat. His hand was still swollen and he winced as he opened and shut the palm of his hand. 

“I feel like there’s been a trial against me in the time that I’ve been away from you.”

“Don’t say that, Crowley.” He smiled meekly. “It makes me sad to hear you say such things.”

Crowley’s response was barely above a whisper. “How do you think I feel?”

Wordlessly, Aziraphale reached into his satchel and retrieved a manilla envelope. He slid it across the table to Crowley.

“See for yourself.”

He held onto it tentatively, as though handling a bomb. He reached inside and froze when he caught sight of his mugshot staring back at him. “He gave this to you?”

Aziraphale nodded.

“Fucking bastard. He had no right.”

“I know.”

Crowley heaved a frustrated sigh, removing his glasses only to bury his face in his hands. “How much did you read?”

Aziraphale closed his eyes. “Enough.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And what’s the verdict? Are you done with me now that you know the truth?”

He sighed. “Crowley…you know it’s not that simple.”

“Do I? Last night I thought…”

His throat closed around the sentence.

_I thought that you could learn to love me._

“Last night what?” Aziraphale asked, eyes searching.

Crowley ignored him. “…and now you can barely look at me. It’s not like I killed somebody.”

Aziraphale froze, clinging to the edge of the table in an attempt to root himself firmly in the present.

“Wait— there’s something else, isn’t there?” He asked. “What else did he tell you?”

“I— I don’t believe—”

“No, say it. I want to know what he said that’s got you tip-toeing around me like this!”

“He said you were accused of killing your mother!” He cried, his expression utterly undone; torn apart in the worst way.

Crowley’s mouth hardened into a firm line. “There it is, then. You want to ask me?”

 _“No,_ I do not.”

“Go on, I know you want to.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But it’s clear that you’re wondering, or you wouldn’t shrink away from me as you do.”

“I don’t have any doubts about that, Crowley. I know who you are.”

“Do you?”

He lowered his eyes, his voice barely above a whisper. “I trusted you before I knew you and I still do.”

“But you _did_ know me, Aziraphale, and you still do. The whole time we were together— the gallery, Folkestone, the cottage—”

“—don’t.”

Crowley’s eyes were wild. Without the glasses to hide behind he was all emotion and fire. He looked like he was falling even as he sat on a stool and held his head high.

But there was nothing for him to grab onto— the world was falling right along with him.

“It was all me, Aziraphale. You know me.”

“I thought I did.”

“Aziraphale…”

The librarian hardened his heart, hating himself even as he did it. “You let me get close to you. I told you my story, Crowley, so you knew the whole time _precisely_ why affection felt like poison to me. You knew why I couldn’t allow myself to stay over at your house or for you to come to mine. And then I let you in and you still didn’t tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“That you have a history…”

“— don’t say it.”

“…of _violence.”_

“You don’t know, Aziraphale.” Crowley said, leaping from the counter in favour of pacing the length of his kitchen. “You have no fucking idea.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had two assault charges?”

“Because I knew how you’d react now didn’t I?! I knew that we would end up here, with you looking at me like I’m your fucking ex. I’m better than that, Aziraphale, you know I am.”

“But you didn’t trust me with it!” He cried, tears springing to his eyes. “You took that choice away from me with your silence.”

“Do you want to know what I’ve been hearing all my life? Hmm? Oh, Crowley, he’s such a fuckup. Crowley failed math— fuckup. Crowley hates his old man— fuckup. So forgive me for wanting to have one thing, Aziraphale, just one person who I didn’t have to apologize to for my fucked up existence.”

“Crowley…”

“Anathema should be back any minute now.” He said, his feet finally settling in one place.

Aziraphale blinked in surprise. “Uh, yes, I suppose so.”

“Right.” He nodded. “Good. She offered to let you stay at her place; I think you should take her up on it.”

“Crowley, I— ”

He shook his head. “I’ll be back in an hour. Try to be gone by then, alright?”

“Crowley, can’t we talk about this?”

“What else is there to talk about?” He asked, his anger from a moment ago now dull and heavy. “Besides, you’ll be gone by the time I get home anyway.”

He danged the keys from his fingers, oscillating in the open doorway. “You know, Bee warned me that this would happen. He told me I ought to tell you straight off and get it over with.”

Aziraphale watched him helplessly from his seat at the counter. “Why didn’t you?”

“I guess I thought it would turn out differently.” He cast his eyes about the room once more, taking in the silence and Aziraphale’s presence. “You can take Rilke with you when you go.”

The door swung decisively shut behind him.

The first day after is the hardest.

Someone told him that before, though probably in the context of flu symptoms or physical exercise routines.

You’d think that the first day after a break-up would be the worst, but it’s not. It’s the fact that the days continue to move without slowing in the slightest for your benefit.

Aziraphale gets up, he eats, and he goes to work.

He sleeps on Anathema’s couch because he doesn’t want to take the bus alone all the way back to the cottage and it would be unfair to ask Anathema to take him only to be left alone for the long ride back to her flat. 

Then there’s the text messages. He tries not to look, he really does. And there’s nothing to see there, anyway. Just the photograph from the beach he’d asked Crowley to send him followed by the now infamous “I’m on my way” text the morning of the incident.

Crowley dropped everything to come to him but all he’d seen was the betrayal— the truth he thought he wanted to know handed to him on a silver platter by a man who didn’t love him.

Gabriel’s words played over and over on an endless loop: _‘One day, you’re going to see that no one else will be able to love you as I do… I’m the best you’re ever going to get, sweetheart.’_

The very thought of going back to Gabriel made his skin crawl but perhaps he had a point. Aziraphale had a knack for being left; the only difference was that this time, he wanted a rewrite. 

He wanted to travel back in time start over. To approach their conversation a different way. He had basically accused Crowley of the same violence he recognized in Gabriel, and that was unforgivable. 

Crowley had secreted away a part of himself only to have Aziraphale tear away his cover and then recoil from the sight of it. Crowley would never forgive him.

 _Nor should he,_ he thinks, and scans another book for the pile. 

He smiles at the student as she reaches for her library card. “Did you find everything alright?”

“He lied to me, Anathema. You know how I feel about that.”

They were on Day 5 of their Queer Eye marathon which, at this pace, Aziraphale felt certain they would never finish. Especially not with Anathema interrupting every twenty minutes with big unanswerable questions about Crowley and their falling out.

“I do,” she conceded, tugging the blanket to her side of the couch. “But can I just play devil’s advocate here?”

He sighed. “You seem to do little else.”

“I shall ignore that. Anyway— all I mean to say is that Crowley didn’t lie to you so much as he withheld the truth.”

Aziraphale’s mouth fell open in shock. “I cannot believe you are defending him! I thought you didn’t like Crowley.”

“It’s not about me _liking_ him,” she said, muting her phone as it chimed for the third time that evening. (Newt’s check-ins were edging on unbearable.) “I was just a bit skeptical, that’s all. But then you were so happy— happier than I remember you being.”

“I was happy,” he confessed.

“You know,” she mumbled, “you really scared me the other day.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“—I know, I know. But I was still frightened.” She linked her arm in his, clinking his cocoa mug with her own. “When Gabriel— when you came to stay with me the first time— I was so scared because you looked different, like…like all the air had been sucked out of your lungs. And when you called me to tell me that Gabriel had visited the library, I panicked because I thought it was happening all over again.  
But then this idiot on a motorcycle showed up. And after talking him down from killing Gabriel with his bare hands, I watched him as he brought you back to yourself. I couldn’t get you to say a word all morning and then he showed up and suddenly you could speak. And on top of all _that,_ I endured his countless texts while he was at work, asking how you were.”

He stared into his mug, swirling his drink. “I didn’t know that.”

“I know.” She held up her phone, waving it in front of him. “And he’s texting me even now to make sure you’re alright because he’s afraid you wouldn’t want to see him.”

Aziraphale swallowed the lump in his throat. His ears were ringing and he was afraid that if he or Anathema moved too quickly he might break. 

“I’m not going to tell you what to do, Aziraphale. But you should know that this is _not_ history repeating itself. Because you are so, so _strong._ And I think you’re strong enough to be lied to without burning everything down just because you know you can.”

She handed him a tissue, politely ignoring his tears as he collected himself. (A quality mastered by nurses and all dear friends.)

“You would make an incredible lawyer, you know.” He sniffed. “If you’re ever thinking of a career change.” 

She smiled into her cocoa. “You never know.”

It took four days for Aziraphale to work up the courage to knock on Crowley’s door. Four days of re-shelving and organizing and pacing the floor of Anathema’s kitchen while the Keurig brewed hot cocoa. (He also felt confident that he’d consumed more cocoa in the past week than he had in his entire childhood cumulatively.)

When he did go, it was only after a stop at the liquor store. A bottle of wine seemed like an insufficient peace offering, but it was also the only one he could think of to purchase. Crowley, he figured, was not the type to appreciate bouquets and sappy notes, though he was perfectly willing to try if the wine didn’t work out.

When it came right down to it, he didn’t even have to knock. Crowley swung open the door while his hand still hovered, about to knock.

“Hello, Crowley.”

He swallowed hard. “‘ziraphale.”

He looked terrible. He looked tired and his oversized black shirt only emphasized his slender frame. Aziraphale thought he looked thinner than usual and the thought made him want to wander into the kitchen and start preparing a lasagna.

He hadn’t the slightest idea how to make one, but that was hardly the point.

Crowley had his leather jacket in hand, holding it awkwardly in front of him.

“Are you going somewhere?”

“Bee invited me ‘round to theirs.”

“Oh. That’s kind of them.” 

Crowley nodded, his expression concealed beneath the rims of blackened glass.

“I’m sorry to come at a bad time, only…I was hoping that I might come in for a moment?”

“That depends; is that wine in your hand?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, taking it. “You can come in.”

The apartment looked the same as it had several nights ago. On the sofa, Aziraphale caught sight of his grey jumper; it was spread over the back cushion like a blanket. 

He imagined Crowley draping it over his shoulders as he watched television and the thought of it made him brave.

“Found that when I was cleaning,” Crowley said, returning from the kitchen with two tall glasses. “You can have it back.”’

(The bravery began to fade.)

“Thanks.” 

Crowley poured two glasses of wine. His hand brushed Aziraphale’s as he handed it to him and he pulled away quickly, tucking his long legs under him as if to take up less room on the couch.

The simple action pained Aziraphale, knowing that his many retreats had put up a wall between them. Ironic, considering how much he wanted Crowley to touch him. To take him into his arms and tell him that everything was going to be ok.

But the moment had past.

“Sorry,” Crowley said, taking a sip from his glass. 

Aziraphale frowned; he did not come here to be apologized to. 

“How are you?” They asked in unison.

“You first,” said Crowley, a smile ghosting his lips.

“I’m…alright. Missing you.”

“Miss you too,” Crowley said to the bottom of his wineglass. “How is life at Anathema’s?”

“Oh, you know, an endless stream of astrological fun facts and predictions. Star charts are very accurate, you know.”

He chuckled, downing the remainder of his glass. “And what do the stars have to say about you coming here?”

“I didn’t consult them.” He said simply. “I thought I’d ask you instead.”

Crowley took a deep breath in, his fingers tracing the lip of his glass in indecipherable patterns. “Aziraphale, look— I’m sorry that you had to learn about me from somebody else. I—”

“Don’t,” Aziraphale choked. “Don’t apologize for that. Gabriel had no right doing what he did. And I believe now that you would have told me, eventually.”

“I would have,” he swore, clutching his glass to his chest. “I promise you I would have.”

“I believe you,” Aziraphale said. “I came here tonight because I’ve behaved a fool. I shouldn’t have shut you out as I did.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Partly Rilke, to be honest. But mostly it was this morning. It was so incredibly _challenging_ to get out of bed knowing that I wouldn’t see you. And I…” he fiddled with the glass, lifting it to his lips and then deciding against it. “I realized that getting out of bed has been something of a herculean task for me these past few years. And then I met you and it didn’t feel like such a brave thing to do, anymore.”

He finished the rest of his wine, leaning back into the sofa cushions. “It breaks my heart to think that you don’t want to see me or…that I broke this wonderful, difficult thing between us.”

He sniffed and Crowley took his hand thoughtlessly. 

_How many times were they going to bear their souls like this in Crowley’s living room, the nights cutting them open?_

“I think that I’ll always want to see you,” Crowley whispered. “Even when it’s hard.”

Aziraphale clutched at his hand, delight caught in his throat. “I want to be with you, Crowley, truly. But I need you to trust me. I don’t want this thing between us to be half-hearted or halfway; I couldn’t bear it.”

“Ok,” Crowley breathed, girding himself. “I’ll tell you everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale! Deserves! Better!
> 
> Wow, that was a monster to write. It was really important to me that I tell this part of the story with Aziraphale's voice and through his lens of experience, and it was such a challenge to post this without making it any larger than the huge chapter that it is. Also, full disclosure, I definitely learned how to write by studying tragedy, so things tend to get worse before they get better in my writing. So I'm sorry to give you such a long and trying chapter, but trust me, optimism is coming. 😅
> 
> I just want to wrap these two in shock blankets and make them some tea-- they've both been through the wringer!
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and thank you for your amazing comments! They got me through the long process of writing and editing this very difficult chapter, so thank you!! 💜💜💜
> 
> Next week, we'll [finally] get some answers...


	11. Crowley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mentions of depression, homophobia, and a minor character death. 💜

**A Lazy Friday Afternoon, 1999**

“Crowley! Are you done with the net yet? I want to catch some grasshoppers.” 

Bee looked forlornly into their glass jar, shaking it as if to fill the emptiness with air.

“Almost.” 

The boy pointed to a yellow butterfly hovering near the edge of the pond. He counted to three on his fingers before lunging out, trapping the butterfly for only a moment before it slipped through a slit in the lining.

Together, they watched as it floated higher on the breeze.

“Bullocks.” Bee said, wisely.

“You shouldn’t say stuff like that.”

“Says who?”

“Says my mom.”

Bee grinned more broadly than could be considered morally acceptable for a five-year-old. “That’s bullocks.”

“Crowley!” His mother called, waving at them from the porch. “One more hour and then dinner time!”

He waved back, relinquishing the net to Bee’s impatient hands. “I hate supper.”

Of course, it wasn’t quite supper that Crowley hated. He enjoyed his mother’s cooking (most of the time) and liked watching the sky grow dark from the vantage point of the kitchen table. It was more the dynamics of it that he found irritating, particularly on a Friday afternoon. 

Friday afternoons had a way of shifting violently into evenings. It would start with his father coming home from work, exhausted from the week and complaining about his wife’s merciless rule of law which forbade him from drinking at the table. (This, of course, was often said with a glass in one hand.) Misplaced comments and indirect statements would dissolve quickly from there until Crowley would go to bed, pretending not to hear the voices downstairs.

So no, it wasn’t supper that he hated. But for a ten year old, everything has a tendency to flow together. Supper can mean a lot of things besides food.

“I like supper,” Bee declared.

“What do you want, a medal?”

“Rude.” They said, wrinkling their nose. “Hey, want to play robbers?”

“How do you play that?”

They shrugged. “You make a disguise and then you go around being a bad guy.”

“That doesn’t sound like a very fun game,” said Crowley, still looking at the net.

All games should be fantastical, he thought. That’s the whole point of playing. Besides, bad guys don’t go around scowling all the time with scars on their faces like in the movies. 

Bad guys look like anyone else.

And they’re everywhere.

**Present Time**

“I…I’m not sure where to begin,” Crowley confessed.

His hand was still covered by Aziraphale’s and when he said this, Aziraphale entwined their fingers.

“To borrow the words of Lewis Carol,” he said, gently, “I find it helpful to start at the beginning, and when you come to the end, stop.”

“You really do have a quote for everything, don’t you?”

Aziraphale shrugged, proudly.

“Can’t believe I hang out with such a _nerd.”_

Aziraphale wiggled his shoulders (bastard). “I prefer _intellectual.”_

“Fucking nerd.”

“Don’t change the subject, dear.”

“Right. Sorry.” 

Crowley glared at the narrow coffee table in front of him, imagining how it might look if it caught fire. “Remember that time I told you about prairie fires?”

Aziraphale nodded. “I remember you saying how long they burned. And how thoroughly.”

“Right. And then afterwards, once the rain comes and all the dead little pieces are washed away, the green comes back stronger.”

“The earth is resilient,” Aziraphale said.

 _“Resilient._ Yes, exactly that.” He paused, chewing his lip. “That’s what it was for me— for us— living in our old house in Shropshire. The faucet would leak or the window would need adjusting and your hackles would raise because you knew something was coming.”

Aziraphale watched the slow and steady movement of his lips as he spoke, releasing bits of himself into the air.

He couldn’t bring himself to move though he couldn’t say why.

“You could tell by the intonation of their voices what was coming next. And if they were loud, well…that’s just the house catching fire. The only difference between their fights and an actual fire was that, during a house fire, you can call someone and they’ll come to you. No one comes when the fire is just voices.”

“I’m sorry,” he sniffed taking off his glasses to rub them clean with his shirt. “I must sound a bit mad.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “No. You really don’t.”

He nodded. “Well, there were good times, too. Great ones. After the fire died down and things were good again. My mom was a nightclub singer and she liked her music loud and her shoes off.”

A smile tugged at Aziraphale’s lips, remembering him in the kitchen; a spatula in his hand as he danced across it. “You must have loved that.”

“I did. It was something. Shropshire is kind of out in the country, you know. Not much to entertain ourselves with. Sometimes when my father went to work, Bee would come to visit.”

“You knew them then?” 

Aziraphale could not imagine Bee as a child. They seemed to be more of a gothic fixture than a person, like a gargoyle perched on a cathedral, swearing to itself as the tourists ambled past.

“Yeah. Their folks moved in next store when we were five or six and they used to come running whenever she turned the music up. We would spend the morning getting ready— cleaning the house and clearing the table. Then she would grab the boombox and we would dance and sing ’til our feet hurt.”

“That sounds amazing, Crowley.”

“You know,” he said, gaining speed as he went on, “she even let us dance on the tables? I mean, who does that? Bee and I would be on the counter, singing and probably fighting, and she would dance around us with a salad spoon in her hands as a microphone.”

“Wow.”

A shadow seemed to move across his face, darkening it. “And then one night we found her sitting on the table with no one around.”

“I beg your pardon?” Aziraphale blinked.

“There wasn’t even any music. The house was supposed to be empty; she probably figured she would have some fun on her own but she forgot to plug in the boombox so she just sat there, like she was waiting for the music.” He pulled his hand from Aziraphale’s and began to bite his thumbnail. “That’s when I started to realize that something was wrong with her.”

“What was it?”

“Depression,” Crowley said, smiling weakly. “She would get distant for a while and then come back after the next prairie fire. But she was always in and out. My father made me promise that I’d look out for her. That I’d keep an eye when he was away on business or whatever. I was supposed to be her keeper.”

Aziraphale leaned back on the couch, his face contorted between grief and empathy. “I’m listening, dear. Go on.”

**Dinner Time, July 6th, 2009**

“You have to fight him, son.”

Agatha looked up from her plate, her eyes shooting daggers at her husband. “He will do no such thing.”

“You don’t get it, babe. That’s what bullies respond to: weakness. You have to be _tough.”_ He punctuated his words by waving his fork in the air. “You just go confidently into that school, and if he gives you any trouble, you give it right back.”

Crowley said nothing as he pushed the food around on his plate. He’d had bullies before, sure. He had a slight build and longer limbs than he knew what to do with. He knew he looked awkward and there were plenty of places for people to hit, so they did. Big deal.

But Erick was different. He was a ninth grader with a square jaw, broad shoulders, and plenty of weight to throw around. He was a brute of a boy who probably thought that an ‘expansive vocabulary’ was a type of venereal disease. Erick looked at Crowley like he was a meal and had sent him home with black eyes on more than one occasion. There was no fighting a boy like Erick Calnan. You just accepted your fate and learned to live with it.

“I don’t like the idea of him fighting,” said Agatha, winking at Crowley over her water glass. She was against fighting in all forms, even the ones she practiced.

His father sighed. “And thanks to you, our boy is soft. He’s going to encounter people like Erick Calnan all his life. He’s going to have to face them eventually.

He leaned forward, giving Crowley a conspiratorial grin. “Unless you’re a pansy, eh?”

“Enough.” Agatha said, her fist against the countertop rattling the cutlery.

His father only laughed, taking a swig from his glass.

Crowley smiled too, regret swift on his heels. Crowley was a thirteen-year-old-boy and the greatest insult he could think of was being called weak.

Well, apart from one other thing.

“I’m not,” said Crowley. “I’m not a pansy.”

“Good,” his father said. “Boxing lessons start tomorrow.”

The lessons were gruelling, and more time spent with his father than Crowley had ever intended. He didn’t know how his father got to him every time, cutting him so deeply with his insults. Crowley had heard far worse from him and from others, but that one comment at dinner had set him off. There was fire beneath his hands but as hard as he tried, his father was always faster than he was. He could anticipate his moves faster than anyone and could hook their ankles together and send him tumbling.

 _Why did he have to be so good at this?_ Crowley could handle his father’s persona as a suave and sleazy business man who hardly spent time at home, but the rugged fighter? This was too much.

“Come on,” he’d say, his fists flying in front of his face, taunting him. “Put ‘em up. Come on, harder!”

When Crowley crawled into bed at night, he was exhausted. All of this training and for what? So he could fight some kid who didn’t give a shit about him? Crowley didn’t understand the preoccupation with fighting people who hated your existence. He’d rather fight for other people than himself. Erick Calnan would never change, so what did it matter?

As far as he was concerned, his father should spend less time encouraging them to fight and more time looking out for his enemy. He and Erick Calnan had a lot in common— they’d probably get on swimmingly.

Then maybe Crowley would be free to do as he pleased. He would join the art club and possibly the theatre students, and he wouldn’t ever have to fight anyone who wasn’t in costume.

At least their boxing matches gave his parents something to talk about. They were bickering again, which meant that his mother had the energy to speak. The haze of her recent bout of sadness was clearing. Each morning she made her bed and resisted the urge to crawl back in until at least 6pm. The house was clean and she was smiling, the radio playing in the background on Saturdays and after school.

If these lessons were what it took to wake her up, then they were worth it.

And the idea of levelling Erick Calnan? It had its upsides. The next time he called Crowley…that _word,_ he’d be in for it.

But here’s the thing Crowley’s father had neglected to tell him: It is always best to wait for your enemy to come to you than to go to them. It is also ill-advised to pick a fight in front of a hallway of students and teachers who could serve as potential witnesses.

After a summer of boxing matches in the yard, he’d taken one look at Erick Calnan’s smug face and lunged, head-first into a fight. It was over in seconds. The boy was too surprised and stunned to react before the teachers were on Crowley, Mr. Wallace in particular giving him a run for his money.

Another thing Crowley’s father had neglected to tell him: It is not in your best interest to pick a fight, with witnesses, against someone whose family had wealth.

Charges were levelled his way before he could even think to offer an excuse for his behaviour. His father arrived at the school in a fury, thanking the principal (but making no apologies) as quickly as he could.

Crowley dreaded the ride to the station. Statements had to be made and pictures taken. _Would be be getting his photo taken?_ He figured yes, he would, based every movie he’d ever seen.

His father didn’t speak until he and Crowley were seated in his old corvette. 

He turned to him slowly, his hands firmly at ten and two. “Are you trying to embarrass this family?”

“No!” He cried. “I did what you said, I stood up for—”

“Idiot boy. The teachers said he wasn’t even speaking to you, you just went up and attacked him!”

“Well…yeah.”

“Look,” he sighed, rubbing his temple. “You hurt someone when there are no witnesses, alright? When no one’s around to report you. And you certainly don’t go after someone with more status than you.”

He cleared his throat, no doubt thinking of the fine he would have to pay on his son’s behalf. (Money had always been a touchy subject with him.)

“You choose someone who’s smaller than you. Someone weaker and without people behind them, like this Calnan asshole with his rich parents.”

“Is that what you did with mom?” Crowley asked, in enough trouble already to feel brave.

To his surprise, his father began to smile. “So you’re not so dumb after all.”

When Crowley said nothing, his father continued. “Besides, I thought you told us he was some punk.”

Crowley frowned. “He is. He’s mean and he’s ugly and—”

“—and he’s rich, son.” He turned the key in the ignition. “You don’t mess with rich.”

Funny, that this was the first time Crowley had won in a fight against anyone and it did nothing to make him feel strong. Instead, it had brought him closer to his father and to Erick Calnan, the boy who’d tormented him for months. The first time Crowley had engaged in violence, all he had to show for it was violent friends.

He hated himself and spent the drive home counting the ways.

Crowley went to bed early that night, still ashamed to face his father as he roamed the house with his newspaper, taunting him.

His mother came into his room late as she so often did and took a seat beside him on the floor.

“I think you were really brave, you know.” 

She had been doing better lately, but her smiles were still rare. She gave him one anyway, in spite of his crime.

Crowley frowned at her. “I thought you didn’t condone fighting.”

“I don’t,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “And I wish you hadn’t done it, but I’m proud of you for being brave.”

“Do you love dad?” He asked.

She blinked in confusion at the sudden change in tone and began running her fingers through her hair as she did when she was anxious. “Where is this coming from?”

“Just wondering.”

“Of course I love him,” she said, her unblinking eyes shiny and fake. 

Crowley just looked at her, sensing the lie but unwilling to push. She’d been happier lately, and here he was, about to ruin it. 

“You want to know what I think?” She asked, grinning as Crowley nodded. “I think that you and I might just be the same person.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think that we’re strong in different ways.” She pointed to his chest. “We feel things very strongly and sometimes that feeling takes over. It feels like we’re overflowing with it, so we have to act, don’t we?”

Crowley nodded, his thirteen-year-old vocabulary too weak to provide him with a satisfactory response.

“You have to learn to fight in different ways,” she said, urging him to get into bed as she switched off the lamp. “But don’t betray your feelings, Crowley. Stand up for yourself or that self will change.”

She blew a kiss to him from the doorway and he waved, far too old and mature to blow one back.

That was the night he learned about love— the give and take of it. That in every relationship, there is one person who is stronger than the other. 

He was still young enough to have given little thought to love and the kind of relationship he might want in the future, but now he knew that as long as he made sure that he was the stronger person, he’d be fine. He had no interest in chaos— the yelling or the force he’d seen in his parents’ relationship, but if he could just be _strong,_ no one would be able to weaken him.

He hated being weak. But he also had no idea how to be strong without giving up the part of himself that loved his mother and chased butterflies with a net.

“Crowley? Are you alright?”

Crowley didn’t answer. An eerie silence had taken hold of him. He just blinked at the empty plate in front of him as though it might change shape at any moment.

Aziraphale sat beside him in quiet solidarity. In between the stories of shouting and boxing matches, he’d convinced Crowley to eat something. He’d hoped that the breakfast he cooked him at 11pm might be of some small comfort to him. That it might help ground him in reality to have warm food and a full stomach. But Crowley still looked lost.

He was so small and timid that he looked as though he might float away.

“You don’t have to finish the story tonight, you know. If you’re tired we could always—”

“No.” He said. “I’ll tell you. I just— I need you to remember something as I do.”

Aziraphale covered his hand with his own, giving it a squeeze. “And what might that be?”

He swallowed. “Remember that you care about me, ok?”

It broke Aziraphale’s heart just a little, to hear the break in his words. He wanted nothing more than to invade Crowley’s space; to pull him into his arms and soothe him, drawing back the hair from his eyes and whispering sweet nothings into his ear until he fell asleep.

But Aziraphale had asked for this, and Crowley was determined to give him the truth, no holds barred.

“My dear,” he croaked, “I’m not sure that that is something I am capable of forgetting.”

“Just promise me, angel.”

“Alright. I promise.”

Crowley nodded and dove back in.

“Come on, Crowley, you can’t hide out in your little farmhouse forever.”

Crowley sighed. Ligur was always pushing for _something._ This week it was concert tickets. Last week, he’d wanted someone to act as a decoy as he proceeded to steal 60$ worth of food from the corner store. (Crowley had refused, but he knew the consequences wouldn’t have been so bad if he had gone with him. Ligur’s family was rich— consequences rarely touched him.)

Why he put up with Ligur and his antics, he couldn’t say. Bee wasn’t a fan of Ligur’s, and he made that abundantly clear whenever he and Crowley were alone (and sometimes when they weren’t.) But Ligur was different. Interesting. He knew nothing of Crowley’s home life, seeing as he lived in his family’s estate on the edge of Shropshire, and that comforted him. It felt nice to have at least one friend who didn’t truly know him.

Even if that friend was as obnoxious and pestering as _Ligur._

“Maybe I just don’t want to be stuck with you in a car for two hours, have you ever thought of that?”

“First of all,” Ligur sneered, “it’ll be an hour and a half, tops. Second of all, it’s the Foo Fighters! Who wouldn’t accept a free ticket and a ride, are you crazy?”

Crowley’s back stiffened at the word. It’s what his father— no, _Michael._ Put some distance there— had been calling his mother lately. Crazy. But Crowley knew the truth— she was just sad. And an overabundance of sadness was usually referred to as something else.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I heard you.”

“So? Are you coming with me or what?”

Crowley weighed his options carefully. His father was out of town on business, which left he and his mother alone in the house. Fortunately, Agatha had been doing better lately. She was cooking again, and Crowley had even caught her humming along to the radio the other day. 

She was doing better. 

Still, his father’s oft-repeated words replayed in his mind on a reel: _‘You watch out for her when I’m not around. She’s your responsibility.’_

He bit his lip, unsurprised by the anger swelling in his chest. He had suspected for some time that his mother’s moods had little to nothing to do with his desire to keep tabs on her. His father valued information more than safety. This made him a double agent, spying on her and passing that information on to the enemy in the form of seemingly innocuous status reports.

Fortunately, Crowley was fifteen. He would soon be old enough to move away from home. He wasn’t good enough for uni, that much was clear, but he could be independent and he wanted to be.

Maybe if he went with Ligur, his father would realize that she could handle herself. And he would understand that Crowley, who had gone along with his orders for so long, was through with being a good little soldier. Then, when he did leave, it would be easier. 

And his father would actually _let_ him.

“What time should I pick you up?” Ligur asked.

“I’ll meet you at yours.”

The concert was phenomenal. Even though it was technically Crowley’s first concert (apart from some local acts that Ligur maintained did _not_ count), he believed it to be one of the very best. They’d sung along the entire time, their voices delightfully raw by the time they reached the car, where they proceeded to sail across the highway with the radio at full blast.

Crowley liked having friends who loved music. 

He placed his hands on the dash and felt the reverberations of the music through his hands. It made him feel young. Like the road ahead of him was full of moments like this one. Sitting in the car with a friend, voiceless and overflowing as the lights blew past. For once, the sounds around him were louder than the noise within his bones; the constant vibrations of thought and worry. 

The moment outweighed everything else. He would have to remember that, he thought. File it away for the next time he felt lost. Because he wasn’t lost, was he? Joy was still possible for him, even when he couldn’t see it.

“Oh shit,” Ligur mumbled, turning down the music. “Cops.”

 _Had they been speeding?_ Crowley hadn’t noticed but he thought they could have been. The music sort of blurred everything else.

Ligur retrieved his license and handed it to the officer when he knocked on the glass.

“Where are you two headed?” He asked, taking notes in his ledger.

“Uh, Ediscam Street. Shropshire.”

He blinked, flashing his light into the car. “Ediscam Street?”

“Yeah?” 

He frowned, already handing back the license.

“Follow my car, I’ll get you there,” he said, “though I’m not sure how close you’re going to get. Fire crews are on the scene now and they’ve got some streets closed off, but I can get you as close as I can.”

“Fire?” Crowley choked, leaning closer to the window. His voice was still raw and he strained to get a sentence out. “What fire? Which house?”

“I don’t know, son. ‘Just know it’s a house on Ediscam Street.”

“Thank you,” said Ligur. “We’ll follow you.”

The officer didn’t know which house, but Crowley did. He knew instinctively that it could only be his. Those were the rules of his house— transgression followed by punishment. If he followed the rules and kept his head down, he could get on. If he avoided stepping on any potential landmines between his bedroom and the front door, he could get on. But this…he had broken the cardinal rule. 

He had left her alone.

The cop car moved quickly and so did they, speed limits be damned. They made it to Shropshire as quickly as they dared. When their rolled-down windows became a problem, they closed them against the breeze of thickening smoke. 

Ligur parked the car at the edge of Ediscam Street, waving thanks to the cop as he pulled away, a regretful look on his face.

This wasn’t happening. This _couldn’t_ be happening.

Crowley stumbled blindly out of the car. The entire street had been evacuated, his neighbours milling about in their pyjamas from behind barricades and fire trucks. He pushed through the crowd as Ligur shouted something indeterminate behind him.

At the heart of it all was his house. The smoke curled above it in tufts as firemen directed a hose through the open window to their dining room— no, it wasn’t open, it was broken. He watched as two firemen emerged from the side door, their uniforms tinged and smokey.

He had to get inside.

“Hey, kid.” 

He turned to see a fireman headed towards him. “You live here?”

Crowley ignored him. The smoke was climbing higher in the sky and he dropped to his knees in surprise as a window shattered near the back of the house.

She had to be inside, he knew it. It was almost 1am and she always went to bed early. He pictured her curled up in bed with her tea. Maybe she had fallen asleep before it started. Maybe she was inside, napping with a book splayed across her chest as the smoke poisoned her.

“Son, come over here.”

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t move a muscle— only his eyes.

“It’s no good, Chief!” One of the firemen called as he exited the house. “The house appears empty and the roof ‘ll go any minute.”

“It’s not empty!” He shouted, anger filling out the holes in his hollow voice. “My mom is in there! In the bedroom!”

“It’s too dangerous, kid. The entire back of the house is a lost cause!”

 _A lost cause._ Just like he was.

Just like he would be without her.

Before anyone could stop him, he bolted towards the open door. He ran inside, past the shoes piled in the entryway and the lopsided banister. 

He came as far as the kitchen and arrived just in time to see the flames pull down the fan above the oven. His room and his mother’s lay just beyond, a wall of flames barring entrance.

“Mom!” He cried, sinking to the floor. To the right of him was a small bookshelf where she kept her recipes and songbooks. He began clawing at its contents, pulling the pages towards himself as he wept upon the floor, blocked by flames from going any further.

“Are you here?!” He screamed. “Mom I can’t— I can’t find you!”

A pair of large hands wrapped around him, pulling him back by the chest. “Come on!”

He let the fireman carry him out, his hands still contorted around a pile of books and burnt pages.

They got out just as the roof began to falter. The back of the house was the first to go as the flames cascaded forward, their warm crackling a stark contrast to the dull roar of the trucks and crowd outside, watching. 

Crowley squinted through the night to see a crowd of people watching helplessly as his young life crumbled before him. 

Among them was Ligur, who, when Crowley was too shocked to talk to him properly, swiftly got back in his car and left him there. Concerts were one thing, but dealing with a shell-shocked kid from the outskirts? That proved too much for him to handle, so he didn’t.

Crowley soon found that everyone wanted to talk to him. Police, firemen, neighbours… They all wanted to know how it could have happened and where he had been when it did. 

_So,_ he thought, _that prairie fire house had finally given up._ It shocked him to discover that it was not anger which had brought the house down, but a burner that was left on and forgotten about.

For the first time in his young life, he wished his father was with him. For the moment, he was off the grid. Unreachable. It didn’t surprise him; he did that, from time to time. He would disappear and reappear a week later with a more pleasant disposition than when he’d left. The issue was, no one had seen him since Tuesday and no one could reach him now.

That left Crowley to deal with the practical side of destruction. He spoke with the authorities, answering what he could (which wasn’t all that much). 

Sometimes his father would grow maudlin after a few drinks and tell him things. He told Crowley about the power of alcohol to numb your limbs and heart until you felt light and the world turned fuzzy around the edges. But the numbness afflicting him now felt different. It had sunken its claws into his chest, making him slow to react and his eyelids heavy. He felt like he was ten miles down at the bottom of a well while those above called down to him with their questions and their condolences. 

He found himself in a great pit with no ladder, his voice having been reduced to barely a whisper from shouting—first in joy and later, in pain.

Luckily, Bee’s family returned from their vacation the next day. Bee’s father immediately leapt into action, helping him with the insurance company and the police. He even let Crowley stay at the hotel with his family as they waited for the smoke to dissipate. 

It was a kind gesture, but completely unnecessary. He’d much rather have stuck to the neighbourhood and would have slept outside if necessary. He’d heard the next day that the forensics team had discovered a body and he desperately wanted to see it for himself. 

What if they didn’t recognize her? He could go and help them with their investigation.

Worse, what if _he_ couldn’t recognize her?

Michael showed up three days after the fire. He’d apparently heard about it in the news and had gotten in touch with local authorities to learn the full story. He then called Bee’s family and demanded Crowley be outside the hotel waiting for him when he arrived later that day.

Crowley waited on the grass with Bee for nearly three hours before he showed up, his old corvette slinking into the parking lot as though the car itself were tired.

“Get in,” he said, barely looking at his son. 

There was a man beside him in the front seat wearing a suit. Crowley recognized him as his father’s lawyer, though he had long forgotten his name. The man waved halfheartedly to Crowley but said nothing.

“I’m coming too,” Bee declared.

“No.” His father’s mouth hardened into a thin line. “Family only.”

Crowley got in the back and watched Bee grow smaller in the distance.

 _‘Family only?’ Really?_ As if the man in the driver’s seat had ever been anything more to him than an enemy.

“Where is—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he barked. “Now be quiet.”

The ride was excruciating. His father said nothing; he simply drove in silence as though he were too focused on the road to possibly carry a conversation at the same time.

Crowley looked at the empty seat to his right, imagining a great lion filling up the gaps with its body. He’d been watching the Narnia movies a lot lately, and thought it might be comforting to have Aslan beside him bearing witness.

But he’d never seen a lion in person before and his proportions, he knew, were way off. The one next to him looked thin. And hungry.

The house, when they arrived, was barely a house. Foundations and corner posts guarded the destruction within; a thousand broken pieces collapsed in on one another. Crowley saw more fragmented wood than he could have imagined whole, as if the building materials had doubled in their destruction. Everything was black and smokey and dead. Yellow tape cordoned off the area and there were tire tracks from where the police cars and fire engines had gathered earlier. 

The day’s investigation must have concluded already. 

The only people around were Crowley, his father, and the man in the front seat. 

“Get out.” Michael said, putting the car into park. “Get out of the car.”

Crowley did as he was told and waited for his father on the charred grass.

“So,” he said, lumbering around to the front of the car. “The Foo Fighters.”

“Dad, I—”

“I gave you one job, Crowley. The only thing I ever expected of you and it was _still_ too much to ask.”

“I didn’t mean to! I just—”

“Just what? Say it!”

“I just wanted to leave, just for one night!”

Before he could react, his father lunged at him, his hand colliding with Crowley’s left eye. 

He yelped in pain as his father’s ring made contact with the soft skin beneath his eye, splitting it in two. He fell back onto the grass, his hands reaching to shield his face. “It’s not my fault! It’s not my fault! It’s not my fault!”

His father ignored him, flexing his hand as if it ached more than the softness of Crowley’s eye. “Don’t hide from me, boy. Don’t you dare.”

He didn’t need to think about it, really; there was no more thinking to be done on the matter. There was only smoke and ash and nothing, so Crowley leapt to his feet. He lunged at his father, knocking him to the ground. He wasn’t much of a fighter by comparison, but the surprise was enough. 

He clambered on top of him, hitting and screaming as his father struggled to regain control.

But something about it felt wrong— this was too easy. His muscles froze as his father stopped fighting, his hands moving to cover his own face.

That’s when he looked up to see the lawyer in the front seat fiddling with his camera.

A cold chill ran down Crowley’s spine as he realized he had been set up.

His father had never wanted him and soon he would be free of him forever.

“You’re just like your mother, you know,” he said, pushing Crowley off of him. He had a bruise forming on his jaw that would look very convincing in a courtroom. “You two never knew when to give up.”

 _Knew._ His father had spoken of both of them in the past tense— the one who was dead, and the one who wished he was, too.

For the second time in two years, Crowley found himself facing charges. This was his first time in a jail cell, however. It was smaller than he could have imagined it, just like everything else in this impossibly small town. 

For the first time, he dreaded his own age. He was older now, and his father would no doubt be pressing for juvie or worse. Any savings he’d earned doing landscaping were gone, burned up in the fire. His father was the only relative he could call and he had been the one to put him in here.

So he called Bee instead.

“I fucked up, Bee,” he choked. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“It’s alright. We’re going to get you out of there, ok?”

When Crowley said nothing, Bee continued. “Just hang on, alright? Tell me you’ll be ok until we get there?”

He pressed his eyes shut. It had been four days since the fire and he was still so goddamned tired. “I’ll be ok. Just hurry.”

“So you went to live with Bee’s family?” Aziraphale asked, the tea in front of him running cold.

“For a while,” he muttered. “Went off on my own for a bit, doing odd jobs. Kept in touch, though. And then one day I went back for a visit and they told me about their plan to open a bar so I helped them get it started. I’m a co-owner, technically. It was a sort of payback, I guess, for all the trouble I caused them. And their family.”

Aziraphale listened, silently. He never could have imagined that the Paradiso meant so much to Crowley. That it had been a sort of penance for him, and the shadowy figure at the bar his very own rescuer.

“I’m very glad they were there to help you,” Aziraphale said, his voice unsteady. “I can’t even imagine.”

Crowley hummed, pressing on. “So that’s why Gabriel told you that I killed my mother. Because that’s what my father told the police in his statement.”

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed in confusion. “But how—”

“He believed it was my fault, Aziraphale. And it kind of was. The police checked with Ligur and confirmed my alibi so nothing was ever made of it but…he still believed I killed her.”

“He should never have put that on you,” said Aziraphale, “all that pressure. You were just a kid. Besides, if you’d been there, you could’ve been killed, too.”

“I abandoned her,” he said simply, his hands moving to cover his mouth.

 _“No._ Crowley, listen to me, it was just a mistake. She left the stove on— these things happen.”

He shook his head. “Not if I’d been there. But I was mad and I abandoned her just like I abandoned you after our argument. I never should have—”

Aziraphale cut him off, pulling him into a tight hug. He felt Crowley’s arms fling clumsily around his shoulders and he hugged him as tightly as he could. He stroked his back and held him in his arms, willing him to come back from the darkness of his thoughts. 

“You aren’t responsible for everyone around you, Crowley. You’re not. Just because you care about someone does not mean that you are meant to save them.”

“Of course it does!” He said, pulling back. “It means that I have to protect them, otherwise what’s the point?”

“Of course we want to protect those we care about—” he would not say the stronger word, “—but we cannot always succeed. Sometimes we fail to save other people. Sometimes they cannot be saved. But I think it’s important to ensure that when you are doing the saving, you’re not sacrificing a part of yourself.”

Crowley stared at his hands, disbelieving.

Aziraphale needed to convince him.

“If you destroy too many parts of yourself, you become another person.” He reached up, tucking a pair of loose curls behind Crowley’s ear. “You were a kid, Crowley. You wanted to go to a concert, there’s no crime in that.”

“I miss her, ‘ziraphale.”

“I know you do, darling.” He took Crowley into his arms, his long legs slung over his lap as Aziraphale held him, dragging a hand up and down his back soothingly. “Thank you for trusting me with your story, Crowley, but you must know that you are not your past.”

“What am I, then?” He whispered.

 _Everything,_ he wanted to say. 

He took a deep breath. “You’re a darling man who reads Rilke and hates thunderstorms and is always cold, even when the fire’s on. You have a friend who cares for you deeply and invited you into their family when yours was too weak to love you properly. You’re an artist and a friend and a beautiful person who deserves so much more than they got.”

Crowley blinked blearily back at him, the words not sinking in, or perhaps, resonating too deeply. “It’s not about deserve, angel. It never was.”

Aziraphale frowned, looking down at him.

“If it was about deserving, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, my _dear.”_ He pressed his forehead to Crowley’s and held it there. “Don’t say such things. The important thing is that we’re together.”

Crowley’s face crumpled, as if to say _‘not for long.’_

“You must think I’m pretty broken.”

He shook his head “No. I think you’re remarkable, Crowley.”

Crowley sank to Aziraphale’s shoulder, his head resting there as he remembered how to breathe properly.

Aziraphale had an arm around his waist and with the other, he set to smoothing Crowley’s hair from his face. He found it remarkable that Crowley had gotten through his story without shedding a tear. As though his capacity for crying was deeply buried. He just stared straight ahead of him like a good little soldier while the tragedy quelled in his belly.

Aziraphale knew well how burying a tragedy inside of you could eat you alive; every calm face gets eaten eventually. 

Tragedy never stays down for long.

“I think I’d like to go to bed,” Crowley mumbled against his shoulder. 

Aziraphale pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Alright, dear. Let’s go.” 

He folded down the blankets while Crowley changed in the bathroom. He wished illogically that he’d had the foresight to bring blankets or cocoa with him— gifts that could wrap around his body and fill him with warmth. How could he have known the trauma he was walking into? 

Rewriting Crowley’s past was an impossibility. 

Azirphale had only the present to work with.

“Do you have work tomorrow?” Crowley asked, leaning against the doorway. The tips of his hair were still dripping and the towel in his hand was trailing the floor.

“I do not.” 

“Ah.”

They faced one another, asking without asking. “Would you like me to stay?”

“You don’t have to.”

“Yes, but do you _want_ me to stay?”

He shifted on his feet, eyeing the bed in front of him. He nodded.

“Good,” said Aziraphale. “Then I’m staying.”

He helped Crowley into bed and set about his own preparations. He changed into what he now thought of as his pyjamas, the old t-shirt and pyjama bottoms from their very first night. He scrubbed at his face, fighting every emotion at once.

The fears put into his head by Gabriel had crumbled when faced with the truth. Crowley was not the violent sort; quite the opposite, in fact. It was no wonder that Crowley dodged compliments like raindrops and tried to act so suave all the time. In his mind, affection came with a price.

Aziraphale’s mind raced with the new information. Above all, it was Crowley’s gentle soul that vexed him. He could not fathom how he could have emerged from such a childhood with hands that held on so tenderly.

He closed his eyes. If only they had met sooner.

What he could possibly have done to help him, Azirphale didn’t know. But something, surely.

When he climbed into bed at last, Crowley was stiff as a post. He stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, avoiding his gaze.

“Are you alright, darling?”

He seemed to relax at the pet name, but barely. “I have no idea how to answer that question.”

Aziraphale sighed. “We’ve had quite the week, haven’t we?”

“Yeah.”

Aziraphale reached towards him, dragging the back of his fingernail gently down the length of Crowley’s forearm. “Are you feeling anxious, my dear?”

“Yes.” He replied, a thick gust of air escaping his lungs.

“I have an idea. Roll over for me, darling.” Crowley curled towards him and Aziraphale stifled a laugh. “No, no. The other way.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow at him but obeyed, turning to face the wall.

Aziraphale inched closer, smoothing the back of Crowley’s night shirt before dragging his index finger across it, tracing a shape against the stiffness of his back. 

“What am I writing?” He asked.

Crowley was quiet for a moment before replying. “A heart,” he said. “You’re really going to have to try harder, angel, if you actually want to trick me.”

“Well, alright then.” 

He brought his hand to his shoulders, tracing a large S across them. He continued on slowly, spelling out the word.

“Strong?” Crowley guessed.

“Yes.” Aziraphale confirmed. “Like you.”

“Sap.”

He wisely ignored him, moving on to the next word.

This one was harder to guess. Crowley ran a few possibilities past him before settling on the correct one. “Brave?”

“The bravest.” 

“I don’t know how much longer I can put up with your sentimentality,” he sniffed. “It’s kind of a lot.”

“Alright, fine.” He began rubbing Crowley’s back in earnest with firm, grounding circles. “Then I shall simply do this until you fall asleep.”

A slight whine escaped Crowley’s lips and Aziraphale felt his back quiver beneath his hands.

“You must think I’m broken,” he croaked. “There’re so many broken parts.”

Aziraphale felt his eyes swell with tears but he fought them back. Crowley did not need his tears, he needed his strength. And Azirphale was determined to be strong for him.

“We’re all broken, dearest.” Aziraphale whispered, his hand stilling on Crowley’s back. “According to Hemingway, that’s how the light gets in.”

Silently, Crowley turned to face him. His eyes were wet and puffy as he leaned closer, a hand steadying himself against Aziraphale’s chest. He brought their lips together slowly, hovering there for a beat as though the moment before the touch might shatter it.

Aziraphale inched forward in response, kissing Crowley as lightly and as gently as he was able. 

Crowley’s soft lips quivered against his own and when it was over, Crowley nestled into his side, his head in the crook of Aziraphale’s shoulder. 

The librarian brought his arms around him, holding him there.

“Do you…” he craned his neck, looking up at him.

“Yes?”

“Do you maybe want to get out of here? Go somewhere for a bit?”

“What, right now?”

“No, just in general.” He swallowed. “A vacation.”

Aziraphale hummed. “I dare say we could use one of those.”

The arm around his middle tightened and Crowley sighed, the tension in his shoulders finally beginning to subside. “We could go far away from Gabriel and life and memories and just _be_ for a while.”

“Any place in particular?”

“Nah. Just want to leave.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe somewhere warmer.”

Azirphale smiled. “You and your warm weather.”

“But you have to come with me,” he said. “It’d be no fun without you.”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

Crowley seemed to settle after that. Aziraphale continued dragging his nails softly over Crowley’s upper arm until his breathing began to even out and his eyes fluttered closed. He looked so peaceful this way, as though he hadn’t just bared his soul an hour ago.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and channeled Whitman. It was time for the days to grow kinder.

The universe, if it owed anything at all, owed Crowley that.

Aziraphale eventually ceased his movements as Crowley’s lips parted in sleep.

Or at least, he thought he was asleep.

“Thank you for not leaving,” he said tiredly.

Aziraphale grinned, his hand settling on Crowley’s hair. “My darling, I hardly know how to be anywhere else.”

**A Lazy Friday Afternoon, 1999 (1 hour later)**

“Anthony! Come home for dinner!”

“I don’t want to go, Bee.” He dragged his hand across the surface of the pond, watching the orange-backed gliders as they drifted away from him. “I want to stay outside and play.”

“I should go too,” they admitted, making no move to stand. “My parents will be looking for me soon.”

“I wish I didn’t have to ever go in.” Crowley glared at the back porch and the man standing by the rails. “And I hate that stupid black door.”

 _“My_ door is red,” said Bee, helpfully.

“Yeah, I know what colour your door is, Bee.”

“And Mr. Franklin has a beige door and Tommy from school has a blue one.”

“So?”

They shrugged, carefully closing the lid of the jar around a sleeping grasshopper. “Everyone has different doors, that’s all. And you can knock on them whenever you want.”

“Get in here, Anthony! I’m not going to tell you again!”

“Not whenever I want,” he said. “Just whenever I’m _allowed.”_

“But one day you will be a grown up, and you can pick the ones you open and go into, anytime.” They turned the jar in their hands, watching the grasshopper that watched silently back. “Even at night— even in the dark.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW. Week two of very challenging writing. I definitely did not expect to be able to post this update on time. (Once again, I feel the need to stress that this is not a tragic story--good things are coming for these two😅)
> 
> I didn't realize how important this story would become to me until these last two chapters. I've never felt this sentimental about a fic before but...here we are.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, and thank you for your kindness-- it makes this process so much better! 💜 I’ve also never had a fic garner such a positive response before, so this is very exciting for me!
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to all of us who learned how to love from outside sources. 💜 
> 
> Also, Crowley deserves 1 million hugs.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](https://celestialsnek.tumblr.com)


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